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The  Life  of  Christ 


BY 


THE    REV.    LYMAN    ABBOTT,    D.D 


AN   AID  TO  THE   STUDY 


OF 


THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  OF  JESUS  CHRIST 


THE    BIBLE   STUDY   PUBLISHING  CO., 

21    BROMFIELD  STREET. 
BOSTON,  MASS. 


Copyright,  i8g4  and  i8g^, 
by  The  Bible  Study  Publishing  Company. 


Contents. 


PAGE 

Publisher's  Preface v 

Author's  Preface vii 


CHAPTER   I.  —  Introductory  :  The  Divine  Christ       .  •  .     .     .       i 

Lesson  2  *  (see  also  Chapter  II). 

CHAPTER   II.  — The  Birth  of  Jesus  Christ 4 

Lesson  2. 

CHAPTER   III.  — The  Education  of  Jesus 8 

Lesson  3. 

CHAPTER  IV. —John  THE  Baptist 12 

Lesson  4. 

CHAPTER  V.  —  The  Beginnings  of  Christ's  Ministry      ...     15 

Lesson  5. 

CHAPTER  VI. — The  Beginning  of  the  Kingdom 19 

Lesson  6. 

CHAPTER    VII.  — The  Challenge 23 

Lesson  7. 

CHAPTER   VIII.  —  Christ  as  a  Conversationalist 28 

Lesson  8. 

CHAPTER   IX.  —  Christ's  Definition  of  His  Mission       -     •     ■     33 

Lesson  lo. 

CHAPTER  X.  — "A  Day  with  Jesus" 37 

Lesson  ii. 

CHAPTER  XI.  —  Elements  of  Hostility  to  Jesus 42 

Lesson  12. 

CHAPTER  XII.  — The  Sabbath  Question 46 

Lesson  13. 

CHAPTER  XIII.  — The  Seed  of  the  Church 50 

Lesson  14. 

CHAPTER  XIV. —The  Sermon  on  the  Mount 55 

Lesson  15. 

CHAPTER  XV.  —  Elements  of  Christ's  Popularity      .     .     .     .    6o 

Lesson  16. 

CHAPTER   XVI.  — The  Evolution  of  the  Kingdom     ....     65 

Lesson  17, 

CHAPTER  XVII.  —  Signs  of  Christ's  Messiahship 69 

Lesson  i8. 

CHAPTER  XVIII.  — The  Commission  of  the  Twelve       ...     74 

Lesson  19. 

CHAPTER   XIX.  — The  Bread  of  Life 78 

Lesson  20. 

*The  lesson  numbers  under  the  chapter  titles  refer   to   The   Bible   Study   Union 
Lessons  on  The  Gospel  History  of  Jesus  Christ. 


IV  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XX.  — A  Period  of  Seclusion ""^82 

Lesson  22. 

CHAPTER  XXL  — The  Transfiguration 86 

Lesson  23. 

CHAPTER  XXn.— Jesus  in  Jerusalem gi 

Lesson  24. 

CHAPTER  XXIII.  —  Christ's  Ministry  in  Jerusalem,  continued      93 

Lesson  26. 
(For  comments  on  Lesson  25,  see  next  Chapter.) 

CHAPTER  XXIV.  —  Various  Incidents  and  Teachings     ...    96 

Lesson  25. 

CHAPTER  XXV. —The  Perean  Ministry oo 

Lesson  27, 

CHAPTER  XXVI. — The  Perean  Ministry,  continued   ....  102 

Lesson  28. 

CHAPTER  XXVIL  — Five  Parables loc 

Lesson  29. 

CHAPTER  XXVIIL  — The  Resurrection  of  Lazarus   ....  109 

Lesson  30. 

CHAPTER  XXIX. —  Sundry  Incidents  and  Teachings      .     .     .113 

Lesson  31. 

CHAPTER  XXX. —The  Last  Journey  to  Jerusalem  .    .     .     .117 

Lesson  32. 

CHAPTER  XXXI.  —  Approaching  Jerusalem 120 

Lesson  33, 

CHAPTER   XXXIL  —  The  Triumphal  Entry 123 

Lesson  35. 

CHAPTER  XXXIIL  — The  Challenge 128 

Lesson  36. 

CHAPTER  XXXIV.  —  Days  OF  Conflict  .    . 

_  i   -y-i 

Lesson  37. 

CHAPTER  XXXV.  —  The  Greeks  Coming  to  Jesus      .     .     .     .136 

Lesson  38, 

CHAPTER  XXXVI.  —  Prophecy  of  the  Second  Coming    .     .     .1-9 

Lesson  39. 

CHAPTER   XXXVIL  — The  Last  Supper 14. 

Lesson  40. 

CHAPTER  XXXVIIL  — The  Last  Discourse 147 

Lesson  41. 

CHAPTER  XXXIX.  —  Gethsemane 1,0 

Lesson  42. 


CHAPTER   XL.  — The  Court  OF  Caiaphas 154 

Lesson  43. 

CHAPTER   XLL— The  Trial  BEFORE  Pilate ir^ 

Lesson  43. 

CHAPTER  XLIL— The  Crucifixion 164 

Lesson  44. 

CHAPTER  XLIII.  —  The  Resurrection  Morning i68 

Lesson  45. 

CHAPTER   XLIV.  —  Further  Resurrection  Appearances      .     .171 

Lesson  46. 

CHAPTER  XLV.  —  The  Lesson  of  the  Resurrection  .     .    .     .174 

Lesson  47. 


Publishers  Preface 


One  of  the  fundamental  principles  of  The  Bible  Study  Union 
is  that  Sunday-school  lesson  helps  should  never  be  of  such  a 
character  as  to  take  the  place  of  the  personal  study  of  the  Bible 
itself  in  the  preparation  of  the  lesson.  The  tendency  of  helps 
\yhich  do  this  is  to  drive  the  Bible  out  of  the  Sunday-school,  and 
to  make  the  opinions  of  men  about  the  Bible,  rather  than  the 
Bible  itself,  the  basis  of  instruction.  One  evil  result  of  such 
helps  appears  in  the  practical  disuse  of  the  Bible  in  many  Sunday- 
school  classes  at  the  present  time.  For  use  in  the  Sunday-school, 
the  Bible  without  note  or  comment  is  much  better  than  the  best 
possible  notes  and  comments  without  the  Bible. 

It  is  equally  true,  as  stated  by  the  author  of  The  Bible  Study 
Union  Lessons  in  The  Andover  Review  for  October,  1892,  that 
*'  we  need  all  the  help  we  can  get  in  studying  the  Bible  ;  we  can- 
not have  too  much  of  it,  provided  it  is  really  help;"  that  is,  if 
it  is  of  such  a  character  that  it  helps  to  a  better  understanding 
of  the  sacred  text,  but  does  not  take  the  place  of  that  text  as  the 
basis  of  study.  Much  such  help  can  be  gathered  from  historical 
and  geographical  works,  from  commentaries  on  the  gospels,  and 
from  the  various  lives  of  Christ,  of  which  we  now  have  such  rich 
abundance.  The  Manual,  published  in  connection  with  The  Bible 
Study  Union  Lessons,  is  designed  to  afford  a  large  measure  of  such 
help. 

It  is  because  the  accompanying  Life  of  Christ,  by  Dr.  Abbott, 
is  of  this  character  that  we  gladly  republish  it  from  the  columns 
of  The  Outlook  as  revised  by  himself,  for  use  in  connection 
with  the  lessons  on  The  Gospel  History  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  is 
very  comprehensive  and  suggestive,  and  throws  much  light  on 
many  points  in  the  history  of  our  Lord.     Dr.  Abbott  has  especial 


Vi  PUBLISHER'S   PREFACE. 

fitness  for  the  preparation  of  such  a  work.  He  has  already 
written  one  Life  of  Christ,  which  has  commanded  an  extensive 
sale ;  has  prepared  excellent  popular  commentaries  on  each  of 
the  gospels ;  and  has  written  several  series  of  comments  on  the 
International  Lessons  from  the  gospels,  in  The  Christian  Union, 
now  called  The  Outlook.  The  present  work,  though  based  on 
the  outline  of  the  Life  of  Christ  as  found  in  The  Bible  Study 
Union  course,  is  really  the  treasure-house  into  which  he  has 
gathered  the  results  of  his  long-continued  studies  on  this  most 
important  subject.  It  cannot  fail  to  be  very  useful  to  any  who 
wish  for  a  better  understanding  of  the  life  of  our  Lord,  and  espe- 
cially to  those  who  study  it  in  the  lessons  of  The  Bible  Study  Union. 
We  wish  particularly  to  call  attention  to  Dr.  Abbott's  statement 
in  his  preface,  that  he  alone  is  responsible  for  any  views  which  he 
may  express  in  this  volume.  We  do  this  in  justice  to  the  author 
and  to  the  editor  of  the  lessons,  and  to  the  Lesson  Committee  of 
The  Bible  Study  Union. 

THE  BIBLE  STUDY  PUBLISHING  CO. 
Boston,  September,  1894. 


Author's  Preface 


This  is  not,  properly  speaking,  a  Life  of  Christ.  During  the  last 
half-century  many  such  Lives  have  been  written,  from  a  great 
variety  of  points  of  view  and  with  widely  different  characteristics. 
Not  to  go  beyond  the  more  popular  and  better  known,  and  those 
which  treat  the  theme  in  the  spirit  of  a  thoroughly  Christian  faith, 
the  lay  student  of  the  Bible  will  find  valuable  aid  to  his  study  of 
the  Gospels  in  Stalker,  an  admirable  compend ;  Farrar,  imagi- 
native, emotive,  and  pictorial ;  Edershewi,  a  treasure-house  of 
information  concerning  Jewish  life  and  literature ;  Geikie,  not  less 
scholarly  in  its  presentation  of  Greek  and  Roman  contemporaneous 
life ;  IVeiss,  thoughtful,  suggestive,  reverent,  though  to  the  English 
mind  somewhat  free  in  its  dealing  with  some  debatable  questions ; 
Andrews,  the  best  extant  book  of  reference  on  questions  chrono- 
logical and  topographical.  From  these  and  other  kindred  sources 
I  have  freely  drawn  in  these  papers,  without  attempting  to  rival  or 
compete  with  them. 

For  a  number  of  years  I  have  prepared  a  paper  for  "  The 
Outlook"  (formerly  "The  Christian  Union")  on  the  subject  of  the 
International  Sunday-school  Lessons.  This  year  the  Internatidnal 
Committee  chose  as  their  theme  the  Life  of  Christ.  A  comparison 
of  their  selected  Scripture  with  that  of  The  Bible  Study  Union  made 
it  quite  evident  that  the  course  selected  by  the  latter  Committee 
was  much  the  more  complete  and  comprehensive.  I  therefore 
adopted  the  latter  as  the  basis  for  my  Biblical  articles  this  year. 
Like  their  predecessors,  these  papers  assume  that  the  reader  has 
access  to  other  sources  of  information  —  in  commentaries,  in  the 
various  Lives  of  Christ,  and  in  the  Quarterlies  and  Manuals  espe- 
cially prepared  for  Sunday-school  teachers'  use.     Assuming   some 


vui  author's  preface 

prior  study  of  the   Scripture  lesson  with  such  scholarly  aids,  the 

object  of  these  papers  is  synthetic  rather  than  analytic;    it  is   to 

present  in  a  single  picture  the  incident  or  teaching  suggested  for 

our  contemplation,  and  to  suggest,  not  all  the  lessons  that  may  be 

drawn  from  it,  but  that  lesson  which  is  most  central  and  is  at  once 

most  upon  the  surface  and  most  at  the  heart  of  the  narrative.     In 

brief,  the  object  of  these  papers  is  not  so   much    to   add   to   the 

reader's  knowledge  of  the  facts  as  to  increase  his  appreciation  of 

the  spirit  of  the  Gospel  narrative. 

Two  remarks  ought  perhaps  to  be  added :  First,  that  neither  The 

Bible    Study  Union   Committee  nor  the  authors  or  editors    of  its 

lessons  are  in  any  way  responsible  for  the  views  embodied  in  or 

supposed  to  be  implied  by  these  papers.     The  papers  do  not  pass 

under  the  eye  of  that  Committee,  or  any  member  of  it,  prior  to 

publication,  but  are  reprinted,  without   revision,  except   my  own, 

from  the  pages  of  "  The  Outlook."     Second,  that  they  are  written 

by  one  who  believes  heartily  and  sincerely  in  what  is  infelicitously 

termed  "  the  supernatural."     My  whole  religious  faith  is  founded  on 

and  vivified  by  my  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Son  of  God  and  the 

Saviour  of  mankind.     It  is  because  I  have  this  faith,  and  desire  to 

impart  it  to  and   strengthen   it   in   others,  that   these    papers   are 

written.     It  is  also  proper  to  add  that  in  the  preparation  of  these 

papers  I  have  felt  free  to  make  use,  without   direct   reference   or 

quotation,  of  my  "Jesus  of  Nazareth"  (Harper  &  Brothers),  and 

of  a  series  of  sermons  preached  in  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn,  in 

the  winter  of   1888-89,  and  published   in   the  "  Christian   World 

Pulpit "  of  London. 

LYMAN   ABBOTT. 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  July,  1894. 


The  Life  of  Christ 


CHAPTER  I.— INTRODUCTORY:    THE  DIVINE 

CHRIST 

John  i.,  1-18  ;  Luke  i.,  26-38 


Before  taking  up  the  life  of  Christ,  it  is  desirable  that 
the  student  should  clearly  understand  why  he  is  studying 
that  life.  I  believe  it  is  because  that  life  answers  the  two 
profoundest  questions  which  any  one  ever  has  to  ask  him- 
self :   First,  What  is  man  ?     Secondly,  Who  is  God  ? 

I.  What  is  man  ?  Before  it  is  possible  for  one  to  ac- 
complish anything,  he  must  form  some  plan  according  to 
which  he  will  work.  Some  ideal  is  a  necessary  prerequi- 
site to  any  achievement.  What  will  I  make  of  myself  ? 
Before  I  can  answer  this  question  I  must  ask  and  answer 
another  :  What  is  true  manhood  ?  What  ought  I  to  wish 
to  be  ?  This  is  the  first  and  most  fundamental  question  of 
religion.  Not,  Is  there  a  God  ?  Not,  Is  there  a  salvation 
from  sin  ?  But,  Is  there  any  ideal  to  which  man  may 
aspire,  to  which  also  he  may  patiently  and  hopefully  direct 
his  endeavors.?  For  until  this  question  is  answered,  he 
cannot  answer  the  others.  He  cannot  know  what  sin  is 
until  he  has  known  what  is  the  ideal,  falling  away  from 
which  constitutes  sin.  He  cannot  know  whether  there  is 
a  God  who  has  anything  to  do  with  him  until  he  knows 
something  about  himself. 

This  first  and  fundamental  question  Jesus  Christ  answers. 
What  is  human  nature  }  The  Gospel  replies  :  Jesus  Christ 
is  the  embodiment  of  true  human  nature  ;  whoever  fails 
to  come  up  to  the  standard  of  Jesus  Christ  fails  to  come 
up  to  the  standard  of  a  true  manhood.     Depravity  is  not 


2  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

natural,  but,  as  Horace  Bushnell  has  well  said,  unnatural, 
contra-natural.  It  is  the  true  nature  of  man  to  be  a  child 
of  God,  and  what  is  meant  by  a  child  of  God  the  life  and 
character  of  Jesus  Christ  declare  to  us.  We  are  to  follow 
him  because  he  is  the  ideal  of  humanity  ;  we  are  to  study 
him  that  we  may  know  what  that  ideal  is.  It  is  one  of 
the  remarkable  features  of  his  life  and  character  that  he 
has  historically  furnished  an  ideal  for  so  great  a  variety  of 
individuals — for  the  ancient  and  for  the  modern ;  for  the 
Occidental  and  for  the  Oriental ;  for  the  philosopher  and 
for  the  laborer ;  for  the  soldier,  the  statesman,  the  poet, 
the  preacher,  the  workingman ;  for  man  and  for  woman. 
Augustine  and  Luther  in  the  pulpit,  Havelock  and  Howard 
in  the  camp,  William  of  Orange  and  Gladstone  in  the 
statesman's  ofhce,  Florence  Nightingale  and  Clara  Barton 
in  the  hospital,  the  merchant  in  his  counting-room  and 
the  mother  at  her  cradle,  have  all  found  the  ideal  for  their 
life,  the  pattern  for  their  imitation,  in  Jesus  Christ. 

Not,  indeed,  in  following  even  him  in  any  exact  and 
servile  imitation,  not  in  trying  to  do  the  things  he  did  in 
the  way  in  which  he  did  them,  not  in  being  an  itinerant 
minister,  or  indeed  a  minister  at  all,  because  he  was  a 
preacher  without  a  settled  home — not  thus  do  we  follow 
him.  If  this  were  following  Christ,  he  could  be  a  model 
for  only  the  few.  We  follow  him  when  we  learn  what  his 
spirit  was,  and  are  inspired  by  that  spirit  ourselves  ;  when 
we  show  in  our  lives  the  patience,  the  courage,  the  long- 
suffering  love  which  he  showed  in  his,  and  solve  the  prob- 
lems of  our  day  and  generation  by  applying  to  them  the 
principles  which  he  inculcated  and  applied.  This  must  be 
our  first  duty,  and  this  our  first  desire,  in  studying  the  life 
of  Jesus  Christ — to  see  what  life  may  mean,  and  ought  to 
mean  to  us. 

2.  The  other  great  question  I  believe  he  also  answers — 
Who  is  God  ? 

The  preface  to  John's  Gospel  is  the  fitting  preface 
to  our  study  of  this  incomparable  life.  God  has  always 
been  a  Word.  That  is,  he  has  always  been  a  speaking, 
self-manifesting,  self-revealing  God.  God  is  love ;  and 
love  always,  and  by  the  very  necessity  of  its  nature,  puts 
forth  life  for  the  sake  of  others.  God  has  thus  always 
been  manifesting  himself  in  nature,  in  poets  and  prophets, 


INTRODUCTORY  :    THE    DIVINE    CHRIST  3  1 

in  heroes  known  and  unknown.     Especially  has  he  mani-  l 

fested  himself  in  and  through  the  one  chosen  people  of  ! 

Israel,  whose  genius  fitted  them  for  the  special  manifesta-  i 

tion  of  divine  righteousness.     At  last,  when   the  prepara-  ' 
tory  work  was  done,  and  the  fullness  of  time  had  come,  he 

manifested  himself  in  one  unique  and  transcendent  human  3 

life.     The  Word  which  had  always  been  speaking  of  the  j 

divine  glory  "  was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us."  • 

In  Jesus  Christ  God  and  man  are  reconciled.     Not  as  \ 

by  some  extraneous  act  done  for  both  God  and  man  by  i 

some  third  person;  they  are  reconciled  in  Jesus  Christ  '. 

primarily  because  Jesus  Christ  is  a  true  man,  and  the  true  ; 

man    always    is    and  must   be    divine ;    because,    on    the  i 

other  hand,  Jesus  Christ  is  the  supremest  manifestation  of  ; 

God  to  man,  and  that  supremest  manifestation  can  be  no  .■ 

otherwise  than  in  a  human  life.     We  study,  then,  the  life  i 

of  Christ  that  we  may  understand  the  life  of  God.      What  »  ■ 

Jesus    Christ  was  in   the  three  short  years  of  his  public  ■ 

ministry,  that  God  is  in  his  infinite   and  eternal   relations  ; 

to  the  children  of  men.     Jesus  Christ  is  God  adumbrated  ' 

that  we  may  look  upon  him.     He  is  the  image  of  God  made  \ 

finite  that  we  may  comprehend  him.     He  is  not  the  mani-  , 

festation  of  one  phase  of  God,  as  of  his  mercy,  with  an-  1 
other  phase — his  wrath — to   come   by  and  by  ;  he  is  the 

manifestation  of  the  whole  moral  attributes  and  qualities  i 

of  the  infinite,  the  eternal,   and  the  otherwise  unknown.  ; 

Therefore  it  is  that  through  him   we  have   access  to  the  J 

Father.     When  we  look  above  us  or  about  us  or  within  i 

us,  and  wonder  who  is  He  that  made  the  world,  that  rules  i 

mankind,  that   inspires   the   individual  soul,  the  answer  is  'i 

always  the  same  :  He  is  such  an  one  as  Jesus  Christ  was,  i 

for  Jesus  Christ  was  God  manifest  in  the  flesh.  < 

We  study,  then,  this  life  of  Christ,  in  the  second  place, 

that  we  may  know  who  God  is.     What  Paul  declared  to  1 

the  Athenians,  that  this  life  still  declares  to  us :  "  Whom  ye  ; 

without  understanding  worship,  him  declare  I  unto  you."  i 

I  ask  the  readers  of  these  papers,  as  they  read  them,  and  ^ 

as  they  read  with  care  the  successive  passages  of  Scripture  | 

upon  which  these  papers  are  founded,  always  to  ask  them-  j 

selves  these  two  questions :    What  is  man  ?  and  Who  is  i 

God .?  and  for  the  answer  to  these  questions  look  to  this  \ 

unique  and  incomparable  life.  ': 


CHAPTER  II.— THE  BIRTH  OF  JESUS  CHRIST 

Luke  ii.,  1-20 


It  must  be  conceded  by  the  candid  student  of  the  Bible 
that  the  story  of  the  miraculous  birth  of  Jesus  is  not  as 
well  authenticated  as  the  story  of  his  resurrection,  and 
that  the  same  importance  is  not  attached  to  it  by  the  sacred 
writers.  Two  only  of  the  Gospel  narrators  mention  his 
birth.  It  is  never  referred  to  by  Christ  himself  in  any  of 
his  reported  discourses,  and  it  is  never  directly  referred  to 
in  any  of  the  evangelical  missionary  sermons  recorded  in 
the  Book  of  Acts,  nor  in  any  of  the  Apostolic  epistles.  It 
is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  devout  and  reverential  men 
have  doubted  the  truth  of  this  story ;  and  certainly  it 
would  be  a  mistake  to  attach  to  this  supernatural  birth  the 
same  importance  that  is  attached  to  the  resurrection. 
For  the  latter  is  the  foundation  of  historical  Christianity, 
and  is  made  so  by  the  prominence  given  to  it  both  in  the 
evangelical  narratives  and  in  the  discourses  and  epistles 
of  the  ApostoUc  writers.  At  the  same  time  the  candid 
objector  must  also  recognize  the  fact  that  his  real  objection 
to  this  narrative  is  that  it  introduces  into  history  so  much 
of  what  is  termed  the  supernatural.  It  is  because  the 
event  is  extraordinary,  because  it  cannot  be  accounted  for 
on  naturalistic  principles,  because  dreams  and  angelic 
visions  are  unknown  in  our  time,  or  at  least  discredited, 
that  this  chapter  in  the  life  of  Christ,  with  its  accompany- 
ing "  overture  of  angels,"  as  it  has  been  beautifully  termed 
by  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  is  looked  upon  with  doubt  by 
the  skeptical  nxind.  Now,  these  papers  on  the  life  of 
Christ  are  written,  as  I  have  already  said,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  one  who  believes  in  the  supernatural,  and  it 
would  be  idle  to  attempt  in  a  parenthetical  paragraph  to 
maintain  against  objectors  this  point  of  view.  It  must  suf- 
fice here  to  say  that  I  believe  that  God  is  in  nature  and  in 

4 


THE    BIRTH    OF    JESUS    CHRIST 


human  life,  and  that  in  Jesus  the  Christ  he  entered  into  one 
unique  human  life  in  order  to  reveal  himself  to  mankind  ; 
and  it  does  not  seem  strange  to  me  that  such  an  entrance 
should  be  unique.  I  believe  that  angelic  spirits  and  the 
sainted  dead  are  not  far  removed  from  us,  but  all  about 
us ;  it  does  not,  therefore,  seem  strange  to  me  that  some 
vision  should  be  afforded  of  their  presence  in  the  birth- 
hour  of  the  Son  of  God.  The  method  of  the  divine 
incarnation  and  the  simplicity  of  the  Gospel  narrative  both 
of  Matthew  and  of  Luke  seem  to  me  inconsistent  with  the 
idea  that  these  narratives  are  either  mythical  additions  or 
the  creations  of  a  wonder-working  fancy.  Let  the  reader, 
then,  whatever  may  be  his  philosophical  predilections,  try 
for  a  moment  to  take  this  point  of  view,  and,  with  this 
faith  in  the  supernatural  as  a  present  and  perpetual  reality, 
read  the  simple  story  of  Jesus's  birth. 

A  peasant  youth  and  maiden  are  betrothed.  The  man 
a  carpenter  by  trade,  a  Nazarene  by  residence,  an  upright 
but  cautious  if  not  timid  soul,  of  little  repute  in  his  com- 
munity, and  belonging  to  the  poorest  of  the  peasantry ; 
the  maiden  a  woman  of  quick  impulses  and  resolute  will, 
devout,  God-fearing,  familiar  with  the  Scriptures  of  her 
people,  and  possessing  a  patient,  heroic  mother-love,  whicH 
has  made  her  a  true  type  of  womanhood  and  motherhood 
throughout  the  ages.^  Both  youth  and  maiden  live  in  th^ 
hope  of  the  coming  of  that  Messiah  who  was  to  redeem 
Israel  from  its  bondage  and  re-establish  the  kingdom  of 
God  upon  the  earth.  They  live  in  an  age  when  angeli(i 
visitations  seemed  not  incredible.  To  her,  as  yet  unmar- 
ried, comes  from  an  angel  the  annunciation  of  her  mother- 
hood, and  that  the  child  to  whom  she  should  give  birth 
should  be  the  long-waited-for  Messiah.  Only  a  mother 
can  at  all  conceive  what  this  angel  message  meant  to  Mary. 
Only  a  mother  can  at  all  realize  how  sublimely  simple  was 
the  faith  which,  despite  the  certainty  that  the  fulfillment 
of  this  message  would  subject  her  to  darkest  and  crudest 
suspicion,  received  it  with  the  quiet  and  accepting  faith : 
"  Behold  the  handmaid  of  the  Lord  ;  be  it  unto  me  accord- 
ing to  thy  word." 

^  For  Scripture  references  justifying  these  conclusions  respecting  the  character 
of  Joseph  and  Mary,  see  (Joseph):  Luke  ii.,  24  ;  Matthew  i.,  19-24  ;  ii.,  14-21,  22  ; 
John  VI.,  42.     (Mary) :  Luke  i.,  39 ;  Mark  iii.,  21-31 ;  John  xix.,  25  ;  Luke  i,,  38  ; 

li.,  19-51 ;  i->  46-55- 


Jstlyn^t^n  /^». 


6  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

With  a  different  sort  of  faith,  less  profound,  less  truly 
comprehending  the  deep  significance  of  the  hour,  did  the 
shepherds  on  the  plain  receive  the  message  which  came  to 
them.  One  can  imagine  them  half-dozing  on  the  hillside 
and  startled  by  the  sudden  appearance  of  a  messenger, 
who  comes  they  know  not  whence,  with  a  strange  light  in 
his  garments  which  gives  them  a  sense  of  the  supernal. 
But  stranger  than  the  apparition  is  the  message  of  the 
unknown.  This  is  not  merely  that  the  Messiah  is  born, 
but  that  the  evidence  of  his  Messiahship  is  that  they  shall 
find  the  babe  lying  in  a  manger.  We  may  be  quite  cer- 
tain that  they  did  not  understand  the  significance  of  that 
message  then,  since  its  significance  has  hardly  been  under- 
stood even  now.  The  sign  which  was  to  attest  the  Mes- 
siah was  his  lowliness.  The  evidence  of  his  divinity  was 
the  degree  of  his  self-abasement.  Love  enters  life  at  the 
very  bottom  and  takes  upon  itself  the  hardest  conditions. 
Since  the  Messiah  came  to  minister,  not  to  be  ministered 
unto,  since  he  came  to  proclaim  as  a  Gospel  message.  It 
is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive,  since  he  came  to 
reveal  a  God  whose  whole  nature  is  summed  up  in  the  one 
word  love,  since  he  came  to  be  a  divine  sacrifice,  not  a 
receiver  of  sacrifices  from  mankind,  the  sign  of  his  Mes- 
siahship was  the  lowliness  of  the  home  in  which  he  was 
installed. 

By  a  different  messenger  God  intimated  the  Gospel  of 
his  Son  to  the  pagan  world.  Whether  from  ancient 
Hebrew  prophecies  borne  into  the  East,  or  from  their  own 
native  discontent  with  existing  conditions,  or  from  pro- 
phetic words  uttered  by  pagan  prophets,  it  is  not,  perhaps, 
easy  to  determine,  but  certain  it  is  that  Eastern  nations 
had  an  expectation  of  a  deliverer  whose  coming  should 
revolutionize  the  world. -^  Among  the  devout  souls  of  the 
East  none  were  more  devout  than  the  disciples  of  Zoroaster. 
It  is  not  improbable  that  the  remarkable  conjunction  of 
Jupiter  and  Saturn  which  occurred  at  this  time  first 
attracted  their  attention  and  led  three  of  the  Magi  of 
Persia  to  travel  westward  in  search  of  the  Messiah  whose 
birth  they  believed  this  conjunction  had  presaged.  Thus, 
in  the  very  hour  of  the  Messiah's  birth,  witness  was  borne 

^See  my  "Jesus  of  Nazareth,"  p.  71. 


THE    BIRTH    OF    JESUS    CHRIST  7 

to  the  double  truth  that  Nature  rightly  studied  leads  to 
Christ,  and  that 

God,  whose  love  is  broader 

Than  the  measures  of  man's  mind, 

gives  the  message  of  his  mercy  to  pagan  nations  by  meth- 
ods which  pagan  nations  are  able  to  receive. 

But  the  reception  of  the  Messiah  was  not  all  with  won- 
dering and  welcoming  faith.  In  the  vain  attempt  to  put 
the  infant  King  of  Israel  to  death,  by  the  slaughter  of  the 
Hebrew  children,  was  presaged,  even  in  the  earliest 
months  of  his  life,  the  hostility  which  the  Christ  was  to 
encounter,  and  which  was  to  bring  him  to  a  seemingly 
untimely  death ;  and  which,  in  all  the  subsequent  history 
of  the  Church,  was  to  do  battle  against  him  and  his  cause 
— a  witness  that  goodness  is  not  a  natural  and  simple 
growth  under  favoring  skies,  but  a  fight  of  faith  against 
willful,  determined,  and  murderous  opposition. 

With  this  simple  grouping  together  of  these  events,  I 
must  leave  the  student  to  meditate  on  the  significance  of 
these  varied  receptions  of  Israel's  King :  By  the  receptive 
Mother  ;  by  the  wondering  shepherds  ;  by  the  seeking 
Magi ;  and  by  the  hostile  Herod. 


CHAPTER  III.— THE  EDUCATION  OF  JESUS 
Matthew,  chapter  ii. ;  Luke  ii.,  21-52 


Science,  which  endeavors  to  explain  everything  by  that 
which   is   seen  and  understood,  offers  two  explanations  to 
account  for  the   mystery  of  character :  one,  inheritance ; 
the    other,   environment.     These   two    are  insufficient  to 
account  for  the  character  of  Jesus  the  Christ.     We  know 
comparatively  little,  it  is  true,  of  either  Joseph  or  Mary— 
what  little   we   do  know  has  been  indicated  in   Chapter 
II.— but  we  know  this  :  that  nothing  remarkable  appears 
in    the    character    of   Joseph;    and    although    Mary,   the 
mother  of  Jesus,  was  a  remarkable  woman,  there  is  noth- 
ing in  her  character  adequate  to  account  for  that  of  her 
son.     She    cleady   had    no    conception    of    his    mission. 
Believing  him  to  be  a  prophet,  she  was  anxious  to  have 
him  inaugurate  his  ministry  by  a  miracle.     Finding  him 
threatened  by  a  conflict  with  the  Pharisees,  she  feared  that 
his  zeal  was  running  into   fanaticism,  and,  with  her  other 
children,  tried  to  break  through  the  crowd  that  was  about 
him  and  get  him  away,  but  tried  in  vain.     This  is   not  a 
case  in  which  the  genius  of  the  father  or  mother  accounts 
for  that  of  the  son.     Nor  do  we  find  in  his   ancestry  any 
indications  of  extraordinary  spiritual  genius.     Two  geneal- 
ogies of  him  are  given,  but  we  do  not  find  in  either  of 
them  any  hint  of  the  future  greatness  of  the  child.     We 
look  in  vain  in  the  records  of  these  names  for   any  of  the 
great  prophets— Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Micah ;  in  vain  for  any 
of  the  great  reforming  kings— Jehoshaphat,  Josiah,  Heze- 
kiah.     The  only  great  name  in  the  genealogy  is  that  of 
David.     With  that  solitary  exception,  the  names  are  those 
of  persons  otherwise  almost  wholly  unknown. 

There  is  as  little  in  the  environment  of  the  child  to  ac- 
count for  his  character.  The  Gospels,  indeed,  give  us  but 
one  incident  of  his  youth,  but  from  other  sources  we  are 
able  to  form  a  tolerable  picture  of  the  influences  under 

8 


THE    EDUCATION    OF    JESUS  9  ( 

which  his  childhood  was  spent.     The  house,  built  of  sun-  J 

dried  brick  and  thatched  with  straw,  contained  probably  but  ^ 

a  single  room,  which  served  for  kitchen,  bedroom,  sitting- 
room,  and  workshop.     If  the  weather  permitted,  the  house- 
wife built  a  sort  of  camp-fire  outside  for  cooking.     There  > 
was  neither  chimney  nor  window ;  the  light  came  in  through  ; 
the  door,  or  through  a  slit  in  the  wall  made  narrow  so  as      ,                    ; 
to  exclude  the  rain.     Art  and  literature  were  unknown.    Zj!                 1 
A  literal  interpretation  of  the  command,  "Thou  shalt  not                          i 
make    unto    thee    any  graven    image,"  prevented   all  art 
except  such  as  was  contained  in  geometrical  or  arabesque 
patterns.     The  only  literature  the  house  could  have  con-                          I 
tained  would  have  been  some  fragment  of  the  Bible,  or                          ■, 
the   commentary  of   some   scribe   thereon.     The  devout                          '] 
Puritan  would  sooner  have  allowed  the  literature  of  Vol-                        "'{ 
taire   and  Rousseau  in  his  home  than  the  devout  Jew                          ] 
would  have  permitted  that  of  Greece  or  Rome.     The  only                          1 
evening  illumination  came  from  a  smoking  lamp  put  upon  ' 
a  bushel  turned  upside  down  to  serve  as  a  light-stand,  and 
in  the  daytime  the  house  was  so  dark  that  if  the  house-                           \ 
wife  lost  a  coin  she  must  light  a  candle  to  search  for  it.                          I 
The  only  school  was  one  connected  with  the  village  syna-                          , 
gogue,   and  here   probably  Jesus   learned  to  read,   using                           J 
the  Old  Testament   Scriptures   as  his  reader.     Possibly                          t 
he  also  learned  a  little  arithmetic.     Science  was  unknown,                         ,:= 
and  writing  was  done   by  scribes  who  carried  their  ink- 
stand and  parchment  with  them,  and  could  be  hired  for  a                           ; 
small  coin   to  do  one's  writing  for  one.     Only  once  did                           \ 
Jesus  go  to  a  school  where  the  higher  education  was  taught.                          I 
This  was  in  Jerusalem,  whose  temple  was  surrounded  with                          i 

the  booths  of  men  learned  in  the  law,  and  which  was  thus  at ,] 

once  temple  and  university.  The  boy  was  but  twelve  years 
of  age,  but  he  was  attracted,  not  by  the  barbaric  splendor 
of  the  temple,  the  magnificence  of  the  music,  or  the  great 
processions,  but  by  this  one  opportunity  of  his  life  to  learn 
something  more  than  his  synagogue  teacher,  or  even  his 
pious  mother,  could  teach  him.  He  strayed  from  his 
parents  into  the  class-rooms  of  this  university  to  ask  ques- 
tions, not,  as  tradition  has  sometimes  represented,  pertly 
teaching  the  doctors,  but  seriously  inquiring  that  he  might 
learn  what  he  hoped  they  might  communicate.  Three 
days  at  this  university  was  all  the  higher  education  he  ever 


/ 

"/ 


lO  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 


had.     Then  his  parents  came  back  for  him,  and  he  was 
carried  away  to  work  again  at  his  father's  bench. 

There  was  as  little,  too,  in  the  general  atmosphere  of 
the  age  as  in  the  special  instructions  of  the  school  and  the 
family  to  minister  to  such  a  character  as  that  of  Jesus. 
There  were  three  great  schools  of  thought,  but  from  neither 
could  he  have  learned  much  save  as  he  reacted  against 
them :  the  Essenes,  the  hermits,  monks,  of  the  first  cen- 
tury, who,  believing  that  the  world  was  wrong,  withdrew 
from  the  world ;  the  Sadducees,  the  materialists  and  un- 
believers of  the  first  century,  who  had  no  faith  in  anything 
except  success,  and  considered  no  price  too  great  to  pay 
for  it ;  and  the  Pharisees,  the  Puritans  of  the  first  century, 
who  believed  in  righteousness  and  in  God,  but  in  a  God 
who  enforced  righteousness  by  external  enactments,  and  in 
a  righteousness  which  consisted  in  formal  obedience  to 
those  enactments,  down  to  the  minutest  particulars.  Not 
from  the  Essenes,  the  ascetics  of  the  first  century,  did 
Jesus  learn  to  mix  with  men ;  not  from  the  Sadducees  that 
God  is  our  Father  and  heaven  our  home ;  not  from  the 
Pharisees  the  law  of  liberty  ;  not  from  all  three  combined  . 
(who  worshiped  only  Judaism  and  abhorred  all  else)  did 
he  learn  the  two  great  lessons  of  his  ministry — the  father- 
hood of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man. 

How  little  either  inheritance  or  environment  did  for 
Jesus  those  who  are  least  willing  to  recognize  any  super- 
natural element  in  life  freely  acknowledge. 

The  historical  conditions  amid  which  he  [Jesus]  appeared  do 
not  adequately  explain  how  he  became  the  teacher  of  a  better 
form  of  religion  than  that  in  which  he  had  been  educated,  and 
how  he  created  a  new  epoch  in  the  history  of  religion.  These 
conditions  were  substantially  the  same,  so  far  as  we  can  discern, 
for  multitudes  of  his  contemporaries ;  but  he  alone  of  all  these 
multitudes  showed  any  fitness  for  this  enterprise.  The  fact  can 
be  explained  logically  only  by  falling  back  on  the  hypothesis 
that  he  was  a  great  religious  genius,  or  by  crediting  him  with  a 
great  personal  endowment  and  native  force  of  character.  Of  no 
man  in  history  could  it  less  be  said  than  of  him  that  he  was  the 
creature  of  his  age ;  and  as  little  could  it  be  said  of  that  period 
of  time  that  it  would  have  been  much  the  same  and  have  formed 
a  turning-point  in  religious  history  had  he  not  appeared.^ 

1 "  Natural  History  of  the  Christian  Religion,"  by  Dr.  William  Macintosh 
(P-73). 


THE    EDUCATION    OF    JESUS  II 

So  says  Dr.  William  Macintosh  in  his  "  Natural  History  of 
the  Christian  Religion,"  which  is  an  endeavor  to  account 
for  Christianity  on  naturalistic  principles.  More  briefly, 
and  therefore  more  effectively,  Henry  Ward  Beecher  has 
said  the  same  thing  :  "  Only  the  lower  natures  are  formed 
by  external  circumstances.  Great  natures  are  freely  de- 
veloped by  forces  from  within." 

This  "  personal  endowment  and  native  force  of  char- 
acter," this  "great  religious  genius,"  this  "force  from 
within,"  is  the  element  in  human  life  which  science  may 
recognize  but  can  never  accurately  measure,  because  it  is 
the  divine  element.  Let  it  be  freely  recognized  that 
times  produce  men.  It  must  also  be  freely  recognized 
that  men  produce  times.  If  Luther  is  a  product  of  the 
Reformation,  the  Reformation  is  also  a  product  of  Luther. 
If  Shakespeare  is  a  product  of  England,  England  is  also  a 
product  of  Shakespeare.  The  geniuses  which  flash  upon 
the  world  at  certain  epochs,  sometimes  revolutionizing  the 
world's  thought  and  sometimes  leading  it  gently  and  skill- 
fully on  in  steady  development,  are  not  to  be  accounted 
for  by  either  inheritance  or  environment.  They  are  the 
prophets  and  messengers  of  God;  in  them  the  divine 
voice  speaks.  All  true  genius  has  a  supernatural,  or,  if 
the  reader  prefers,  a  superhuman,  element  in  it.  Genius 
is  inspiration.  I  will  leave  to  others  of  subtler  intellect  to 
make  nice  discriminations  between  the  inspiration  of  the 
Hebrews  and  that  of  other  people.  To  me  God  is  always 
in  his  world,  and  the  unknown  element  in  human  character 
is  not  more  than  the  known,  but  more  evidently  than  the 
known,  a  divine  element.  That  the  genius,  the  inspira- 
tion, the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ  worked  in  a  human  soul, 
molded  in  the  first  century  as  that  soul  would  not  have 
been  molded  in  the  nineteenth,  and  subject  to  limitations 
in  the  first  century  which  would  have  been  different  in  the 
nineteenth,  need  not  be  questioned.  Enough  to  point  out 
that  Jesus  was  what  he  was,  not  made  so  by  qualities 
inherited  from  the  mother,  nor  by  influences  wrought  by  the 
education  of  his  youth,  either  formal  or  general,  but  by 
that  force  from  within  which  is  God. 


CHAPTER  IV.— JOHN  THE  BAPTIST 

Luke  i.,  5-25,  57-80;  iii.,  1-18;  Matthew  iii.,  1-12;  John  i.,  19-36 


In  the  history  of  religion  two  very  distinct  and  some- 
what antagonistic  tendencies  have  been  observable.  One 
class  of  minds  are  inclined  to  look  at  life  from  the  stand- 
point of  God,  the  other  class  of  minds  from  the  standpoint 
of  man.  If  this  statement  seems  vague,  let  the  reader 
consider  its  meaning  from  the  illustrations  which  follow. 
Both  classes  of  religious  teachers  have  in  mind  the  same 
great  end,  namely,  bringing  the  soul  of  man  into  fellow- 
ship and  unity  with  God.  But  they  approach  this  problem 
of  the  spiritual  life  from  different  directions  and  in  a  dif- 
ferent spirit.  The  one  class  seek  to  bring  God  down  to 
man ;  they  undertake  to  mediate  between  God  and  man. 
In  theology  they  are  Calvinistic  or  Augustinian,  and  their 
endeavor  is  as  teachers  to  reveal  the  character  and  law 
and  government  of  God.  In  church  life  they  are  ecclesi- 
astical ;  they  become  priests  and  sacramentarians  through 
the  temple,  the  altar,  the  sacrifice  ;  they  seek  to  bring  the 
divine  life  into  the  souls  of  men.  This  class  is  in  danger 
of  overexalting  the  symbol,  though  sometimes  that  symbol 
is  a  ceremonial  and  sometimes  it  is  a  creed.  To  believe 
the  creed  or  to  accept  the  ceremonial  is  the  condition  of 
receiving  the  divine  life. 

The  other  school  approaches  the  same  problem,  but  from 
the  other  direction.  They  attempt  to  lift  man  up  to  God ; 
their  fundamental  doctrine  is  that  God  is  a  righteous  per- 
son, and  that  it  is  possible  for  man  to  become  at  one  with 
God  only  by  becoming  a  righteous  person.  They  dwell, 
therefore,  chiefly  on  law  and  duty,  they  put  little  stress 
on  creeds  and  ceremonies,  and  even  in  time  abolish  them 
altogether.  In  theology  they  are  Arminian,  holding  in 
philosophy  to  the  freedom  of  the  will,  and  in  religion  to 
the  possibility  and  the  necessity  of  fulfilling  the  laws  of 
righteousness.  They  are  preachers,  rarely  or  never  priests. 

12 


X 


f 


JOHN    THE    BAPTIST  I3 

If  the  necessity  of  their  profession  makes  them  both 
priests  and  preachers,  the  latter  function  is  the  one  which 
seems  of  first  importance  to  them.  The  pulpit  is  more 
than  the  altar  ;  the  sermon  is  more  than  the  sacrifice.  The 
danger  into  which  this  school  is  liable  to  fall  is  that  of 
making  religion  a  merely  ethical  system,  of  making  right- 
eousness a  series  of  laws  external  to  man,  of  making  obe- 
dience formal  rather  than  spiritual,  and,  perhaps  chief  dan- 
ger of  all,  of  spurring  men  on  to  great  endeavor  withour 
equipping  them  with  commensurate  spiritual  endowment. 

Both  of  these  tendencies  are  clearly  discernible  in  Old 
Testament  history.  One  is  seen  in  the  priesthood,  the 
other  in  the  prophetic  order.  The  priesthood  laid  stress 
on  the  temple,  the  feasts,  the  ceremonies,  the  sacrifices. 
Their  notion  of  religion  comes  to  its  culmination  in  the 
Book  of  Leviticus,  which  modern  criticism  has  shown  to 
be  the  product  of  a  post-Mosaic  age,  the  ripened  result  of 
a  priestly  system  which  had  been  in  operation  for  centu- 
ries. The  prophetic  order,  on  the  other  hand,  attached 
little  value  to  sacrifices  and  ceremonies,  and  sometimes 
scouted  them  altogether.  The  spirit  of  this  order  is  well 
interpreted  in  the  first  chapter  of  Isaiah,  a  prophet  whose 
temper  somewhat  resembles  that  of  Martin  Luther.  Occa- 
sionally a  great  genius  arises,  like  the  second  Isaiah,  who 
combines  both  messages  in  one,  laying  all  the  stress  which 
the  prophets  have  laid  on  the  necessity  of  righteousness 
and  character,  and  all  the  stress  which  the  priests  have 
laid  on  the  inflowing  of  a  divine  life  into  the  souls  of  men. 

To  this  order  of  prophets — that  is,  to  this  class  of  minds, 
for  the  prophets  were  not  an  ecclesiastical  order — belonged 
John  the  Baptizer,  the  second  cousin  of  Jesus.  His 
appearance  recalled  that  of  Elijah,  whom  he  resembled 
alike  in  the  suddenness  of  his  public  apparition,  in  the 
sternness  of  his  message,  in  his  simple  habits,  and  in  his 
uncouth  appearance.  He  wore  a  rough  garment  of  camel's 
hair  about  his  person,  and  lived  for  the  most  part  on  the 
locusts  which  even  to  this  day  are  caught  and  ground  up, 
serving  the  poorest  class  of  peasants  with  a  substitute  for 
flour,  and  on  wild  honey,  which  was  often  found  in  the 
crevices  of  the  rocks  and  in  holes  in  the  trees.  He  had 
been  educated,  probably,  for  the  priesthood,  to  which  his 
father  belonged,  but,  disgusted  with  the  corruptions  of  the 


14  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

Church,  like  Luther,  he  had  come  out  from  it.  His  mes- 
sage was  a  repetition  of  that  of  the  first  Isaiah,  of  the 
prophet  Amos,  and  of  the  prophet  Micah.  In  the 
intensity  of  his  zeal,  the  sincerity  of  his  speech,  and 
the  unfeigned  horror  of  a  righteous  conscience  against 
the  formal  and  fictitious  religion,  he  had  all  the  strength 
of  the  ancient  prophets.  His  message  was  like  this : 
What  doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee  but  to  do  justly,  and 
to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy  God  ?  When 
the  multitude  thronged  about  him,  attracted  by  his 
rugged  features  and  yet  more  rugged  preaching,  he  told 
them  that  they  were  not  to  think  themselves  better  than 
the  pagans  because  they  were  children  of  Abraham  ;  God 
could  raise  up  out  of  the  stones  children  of  Abraham  more 
amenable  to  the  divine  influence  than  they  were.  When 
/  a  delegation  from  the  Sanhedrim  came  down  to  inquire 

Y-v  into  his  ministry,  he  repudiated  all  other  authority  than 

'  that  which  the  mere  truth  of  his  utterance  possessed ;  but 

when  the  people,  stirred  by  his  words,  desired  to  know  what 
they  should  do  to  flee  from  the  wrath  which  he  prophesied, 
he  had  at  first  no  other  message  to  give  them  than  that  of 
the  first  Isaiah,  "  Wash  you,  make  you  clean,  put  away  the 
evil  of  your  doings  from  before  my  eyes."  He  had  no 
message  for  them  of  divine  help.-^  In  this  respect  his 
preaching  was  a  preparation  for  the  more  hopeful  and  in- 
spiring message  of  the  Christ.  He  seems,  however,  to 
have  prepared  himself  by  his  preaching  for  that  better  mes- 
sage. Before  Christ's  baptism  he  was  a  preacher  of  the 
law ;  after  Christ's  baptism  he  became  a  preacher  of  the 
Gospel.^  If,  as  is  probable,  his  preaching,  recorded  in 
John's  Gospel,  occurred  about  the  Day  of  Atonement,  his 
figure,  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  which  taketh  away  the 
sin  of  the  world,"  could  not  have  been  misunderstood  by 
the  people.  Both  he  and  his  auditors  must  have  had  in 
mind  the  scapegoat  on  which  the  sins  of  the  people  were 
symbolically  laid  on  the  great  Day  of  Atonement,  and  by 
which  they  were  borne  off  into  the  wilderness  to  be  known 
no  more.^  Thus  John  the  Baptizer  is  the  last  preacher  of 
the  law  and  the  first  herald  of  the  Gospel,  and  therefore 
greater  than  the  greatest  in  the  history  of  the  past,  yet  less 
than  the  least  in  the  Church  of  the  future.* 

1  Luke  iii.,  10-14.  ^  Leviticus,  chapter  xvi. 

2  See  John  i.,  29-36.  *  Matthew  xi.,  11. 


CHAPTER  v.— THE  BEGINNING  OF   CHRIST'S 

MINISTRY 

Matthew  iii.,  13-17  ;  iv.,  i-ii  ;  Mark  i.,  i-ii 


The  spirit  and  method  of  Jesus,  as  he  afterwards 
said  publicly,  radically  differed  from  those  of  his  cousin 
John  the  Baptizer,  but  their  great  end  was  the  same — a 
spiritual  reformation  founded  on  righteousness  and  in- 
spired by  faith  in  God.  When,  therefore,  Jesus  emerged 
from  the  obscurity  in  which  he  had  been  living  to  enter 
upon  his  work,  his  first  act  was  to  seek  out  his  cousin  John 
and  identify  himself  with  this  already  perilously  dis- 
credited teacher.  He  connected  his  work,  which  was  so 
soon  to  supersede  that  of  his  predecessor,  with  the  work 
that  was  to  be  superseded  by  insisting  that  John  should 
baptize  him,  by  selecting  his  first  disciples  from  those  of  his 
cousin  John,  and  by  allowing,  if  he  did  not  encourage,  them 
to  continue  the  ceremony  of  baptism.  Caution  might  well 
have  counseled  Jesus  to  begin  his  new  movement  without 
entangling  alliances  with  what  had  gone  before.  Con- 
science might  have  re-enforced  the  argument  of  caution. 
Can  John's  method,  it  would  have  asked,  save  the  world  ? 
"  No,"  Jesus  would  have  said.  "The  man  who  shuts  him- 
self out  from  the  world  can  never  reform  it.  John  comes 
neither  eating  nor  drinking.  I  shall  come  eating  and 
drinking."  Do  you  believe  that  his  demand  of  repentance 
is  sufficient  to  save  the  world  ?  "  No,"  Jesus  would  have 
said,  "  repentance  is  not  sufficient ;  there  must  be  faith — 
faith  in  God,  unity  with  God,  receiving  life  from  God — or 
the  soul  will  fail  to  fulfill  its  own  dream  of  righteousness." 
Nevertheless  Jesus  identified  himself  with  John,  for  John 
had  raised  a  great  moral  issue — on  the  one  side  corruption 
and  a  spurious  religion,  on  the  other  an  earnest  though  in- 
effectual protest  against  it ;  and  Jesus  began  his  ministry 
by  identifying  himself  with  the  protestants  and  so  repeating 
the  challenge  of  John  to  the  forces  already  arrayed  against 

15 


l6  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

righteousness.  The  baptism  of  Jesus  was  like  the  act  of 
Luther  when  he  flung  the  papal  bull  into  the  fkmes  in  the 
market-place  at  Wittenberg. 

From  his  baptism,  from  this  open  and  public  confession 
of  his  faith  in  righteousness,  this  open  and  public  chal- 
lenge to  unrighteousness,  he  went  up  into  the  wilderness  to 
ponder  on  his  future  life,  and  by  meditation  and  prayer, 
with  wrestling,  to  prepare  for  it.  What  shall  his  Hfe  be  ? 
How  shall  he  meet  its  problems  ?  How  shall  he  deal  with 
its  questions  as  they  confront  him  ?  Forty  days  he  pon- 
dered these  questions,  eating  little — probably  nothing  more 
than  he  could  gather  of  the  wild  honey  from  the  rocks,  or 
the  locusts,  the  wilderness  food  of  his  cousin  John.  One 
- J^  wonders  what  went  on  in  those  forty  days  of  soul-ques- 

tioning, in  which  all  life  lay  dimly  outlined  before  him.. 
The  questioning  over,  the  devil  came  to  him  to  tempt 
him — not,  we  may  be  sure,  as  art  has  sometimes  repre- 
sented him,  with  horns  and  hoofs.  A  devil  with  horns 
and  hoofs  is  no  devil.  Who  would  not  say  to  such  an  one, 
"  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan  "  ?  He  came  to  Christ  as  he 
comes  to  us,  robed  as  an  angel  of  light,  with  cunningly 
devised  suggestions,  the  evil  of  which  only  the  clear  spirit- 
ual insight  of  a  soul  wholly  consecrated  to  God's  service 
could  detect. 

He  was  hungry.  Command  these  stones  that  they  may 
be  made  bread :  why  not  ?  Because  he  had  come  into 
life  that  he  might  be  subject  to  human  conditions,  and  to 
use  his  supernatural  power  for  himself  was  to  violate  the 
very  condition  of  his  incarnation.  But  more  than  that  is 
involved  in  this  temptation  and  in  Christ's  reply.  For  this 
suggestion  was  that  he  should  minister  to  the  desires 
rather  than  to  the  deeper  needs  of  men.  What  men  desire 
is  bread — that  which  ministers  to  the  bodily  ease  and  com- 
fort ;  in  brief,  civilization.  Speak,  said  the  tempter,  and 
let  the  streams  give  forth  their  gold,  and  the  rocks  their 
coal,  and  the  prairies  their  bountiful  harvest,  and  let  all  the 
mountain  streams  run  leaping  down  the  mountains  and 
turn  the  busy  wheel  of  industry,  give  men  food  for  the 
stomach  and  occupation  for  the  ear  and  the  eye,  and  men 
shall  rise  up  and  call  thee  blessed.  "  No,"  Christ  replies, 
"  it  is  not  bread  alone  which  man  needs ;  but  every  mani- 
festation and  revelation  of  God.     I  will  not  seek  the  way 


THE    BEGINNING    OF    CHRIST's    MINISTRY  1 7 

to  men  by  their  animal  nature.  I  will  touch  them  in  the 
brain,  in  the  heart,  in  the  spirit.  I  will  seek  my  way, 
though  it  be  long  and  dreary,  to  my  kingdom  by  lifting 
men  above  the  earth  and  the  earthly."  Christianity  is  not 
civilization,  and  does  not  come  through  civilization.  Chris- 
tianity first ;  civilization  afterwards.  The  ministry  to  the 
spirit  first ;  the  ministry  to  the  body  subsequently. 

Then  comes  the  second  suggestion.  Stand  in  imagina- 
tion on  the  loftiest  pinnacle  of  the  lofty  temple.  Behold 
the  priests  joyful  in  the  courts  below  and  the  city  thronged 
with  multitudes  gathered  on  this  festal  day.  Now  fling 
thyself  down  from  this  pinnacle ;  be  borne  up  in  angel 
hands ;  let  not  thy  foot  dash  against  a  stone ;  so,  by 
appealing  to  men's  wonder  and  admiration,  win  thy  victory 
by  one  great  successful  exhibition.  How  often  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Church  has  this  temptation  been  repeated ! 
What  mean  these  great  cathedrals,  these  magnificent  pro- 
cessions, this  sumptuous  religion,  these  insignia  of  eccle- 
siastical power ;  what  these  sermons  striving  to  stir  men 
by  pictures  of  an  imagined  heaven  and  an  imagined  hell, 
except  this — that  the  Church  has  yielded  to  the  temptation 
to  make  quick  passage  to  a  kingdom  of  God  by  exciting 
men  to  fear  and  admire  God  rather  than  by  inspiring  them 
to  love  him  ?  Not  so  will  Christ  win  his  way  to  the  world's 
homage.  He  cares  not  for  bowing  heads  and  bended 
knees  ;  only  for  loyal  hearts  touched  with  the  spirit  of  his  (j-j 
own  deep  love. 

Then  comes  the  third  temptation.  He  is  in  the  pro- 
phetic mood  peculiar  to  a  great  poetic  soul.  He  seems 
to  himself  to  stand  on  the  tip  of  a  high  mountain  with 
all  the  kingdoms  of  a  world  spread  out  before  him  :  Greece 
with  her  temples  and  her  philosophy,  Rome  with  her  pal- 
aces and  her  armies,  the  Orient  with  her  resplendent 
dreams  and  legends.  All  this,  says  the  tempter  to  him, 
may  be  yours,  but  do  not  be  too  quick  to  challenge  the 
world  to  mortal  combat ;  you  cannot  conquer  it  in  a  single 
day.  Fight  fire  with  fire.  Is  Rome  corrupt  ?  When  you 
are  in  Rome  you  must  do  as  the  Romans  do.  Use  worldly 
policies  to  vanquish  the  world.  How  often  has  that  temp- 
tation been  repeated  to  moral  reformers,  statesmen,  preach- 
ers, priests,  ecclesiastics  of  every  description  !  So  to  Na- 
poleon the  Great  the  tempter  said,  "  Serve  me,  and  I  will 


'  J 


l8  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

give  thee  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  and  the  glory  thereof ;" 
and  he  gave  him  St.  Helena.  So  to  Napoleon  III.  he 
said,  "  Bow  down  to  me,  and  serve  me,  and  I  will  give  thee 
the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the  glory  thereof ;"  and  he 
gave  him  Chiselhurst.  The  last  and  the  most  delusive 
temptation  of  the  devil  is  to  compromise  with  moral  evil ; 
but  when  that  temptation  comes  before  the  pure  soul  of 
Jesus,  instinctively  and  with  a  flash  of  indignation  comes 
the  answer,  "  Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan ;  for  it  is  written, 
Thou  shalt  worship  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  him  only  shalt 
thou  serve.  No  worldliness  shall  be  in  my  religion ;  no 
compromise  with  evil  in  my  uncompromising  battle  against 
it.     It  may  slay  me,  but  I  will  rise  again." 


CHAPTER  VI.— THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE 
KINGDOM 

John  i.,  19-51  ;  ii.,  i-ii 


Jesus  compares  his  kingdom  to  a  grain  of  mustard-seed, 
which  is  itself  the  least  of  seeds,  but  when  it  is  grown 
becomes  the  greatest  of  herbs.  In  the  theme  suggested 
for  to-day  we  see  this  least  of  seeds  before  it  is  planted 
and  has  begun  to  grow.  This  is  the  spring  which  has 
since  become  the  river  of  God,  this  the  germinant  begin- 
ning of  that  Christianity  which  has  since  overspread  two 
continents  and  is  gradually  permeating  a  third  with  its 
transforming  power. 

The  reader  of  "  Marcella  "  will  recall  that  remarkable 
chapter  in  her  experience  in  which  she  is  brought  to  the 
consciousness  that  humanity  cannot  save  itself : 

"  Nobody  could  live  in  hospital,  nobody  could  go 
among  the  poor,  nobody  could  share  the  thoughts  and 
hopes  of  people,  like  Edward  Hallin  and  his  sister,  with- 
out understanding  that  it  is  still  here  in  the  world — this 
grace  '  that  sustaineth  ' — however  variously  interpreted ; 
still  living  and  working  as  it  worked  of  old  among  the 
little  Galilean  towns,  in  Jerusalem,  in  Corinth.  To  Ed- 
ward Hallin  it  did  not  mean  the  same,  perhaps,  as  it 
meant  to  the  hard-worked  clergymen  she  knew,  or  to  Mrs. 
Jervis.  But  to  all  it  meant  the  motive  power  of  life — 
something  subduing,  transforming,  delivering — something 
that  to-night  she  envied  with  a  passion  and  a  yearning 
that  amazed  herself." 

It  is  the  revelation  of  this  grace,  as  "  something  sub- 
duing, transforming,  delivering,"  which  constitutes  the 
secret  of  Christianity.  John  the  Baptist  was  not  a  prophet 
of  this  grace.  He  was  a  prophet  of  the  Law.  When  a 
delegation  from  the  Sanhedrim  came  to  inquire  if  he  was 
the  Messiah  whom  Hebrew  prophets  had  foretold,  and 
who  would  subdue,  transform,  deliver,  he  answered,  No  ! 

19 


20  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

He  was  not  even  a  prophet  of  that  Messiah.  He  was  only  a 
Voice  crying  in  the  wilderness,  and  bidding  men  prepare 
for  him.  When  the  people,  their  consciences  touched  by 
John  the  Baptist's  fearless  denunciation  of  their  sins, 
asked  for  a  remedy,  he  could  suggest  none  except  that 
they  should  be  generous  and  just  and  humane.  He  had 
a  passion  of  righteousness,  but  no  message  of  help  or  hope 
to  a  people  who,  vaguely  desiring  or  eagerly  craving  it,  yet 
could  not  achieve  it. 

To  him  came  his  cousin  to  be  baptized.  John  had 
known  Jesus  before ;  but  it  had  never  occurred  to  him 
that  this  Jesus  was  the  Messiah.  *'  A  prophet  is  not  with- 
out honor  save  in  his  own  country."  In  the  hour  of  bap- 
tism the  truth  was  flashed  upon  him.  Whether  the  Holy 
Spirit  took  on  the  form  of  a  dove  and  descended,  or  a  dove 
descended  and  was  accepted  by  John  as  a  symbol  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  or  the  Spirit  descended  as  a  dove  descends, 
the  figure  being  in  the  Evangelist's  record,  not  in  any  out- 
ward and  visible  sign,  and  whether  the  voice  from  heaven 
spake  audibly  or  only  to  the  soul  of  John  the  Baptist,  it  is 
not  very  material  to  discuss  ;  enough  to  say  that  the  spirit- 
ual nature  and  power  of  the  Helper  and  Saviour  of  men  were 
now  for  the  first  time  perceived  by  the  Hebrew  prophet, 
and  no  sooner  perceived  than  declared.  He  knew  how 
eagerly  the  Jewish  people  were  looking  for  this  revealer  of 
grace,  this  bringer  of  power.  He  knew  how  all  eyes  and 
hearts  would  turn  to  him.  There  is  a  pathos  in  his  declara- 
tions, "  His  shoe-latchet  I  am  not  worthy  to  unloose,"  and 
"  He  must  increase,  but  I  must  decrease."  This  is  a 
realization  never  easy  to  be  borne,  perhaps  least  easy  to 
be  borne  by  one  who  is  conscious  of  his  own  divine  mis- 
sion. But  John  seems  not  to  have  hesitated  for  a  day,  but 
straightway  to  have  sent  his  own  followers  to  the  new 
Master  whose  glory  was  so  soon  to  dim  his  own. 

Two  circumstances  must  have  made  this  course  of  John 
the  more  difficult.  The  spirit  and  method  of  Jesus  differed 
radically  from  his  own.  John  possessed  the  Hebrew  spirit. 
He  was  a  Puritan  before  the  days  of  Puritanism.  His 
method  of  meeting  temptation  was  to  flee  from  it.  He 
shunned  the  haunts  of  men  ;  lived  in  the  wilderness  ;  pro- 
tested against  social  corruption  by  withdrawing  altogether 
from   society.     But   this  was   not  Christ's   method.     He 


THE    BEGINNING    OF    THE    KINGDOM  21 

went  into  society ;  joined  not  only  in  its  religious  cere- 
monials but  in  its  social  life.  He  looked  without  protest 
on  the  children  dancing  in  the  market-place  ;  ate  not  only 
with  the  scrupulous  and  orderly,  but  with  the  publicans 
and  sinners,  and  began  his  ministry,  when  he  left  the 
preacher  from  the  wilderness,  by  attending  a  wedding- 
feast,  whose  festivities  far  transcended  those  usual  in  our 
time,  and  by  adding  to  them  a  generous  and  unexpected 
contribution  to  the  wine  when  the  stock  was  exhausted. 
It  would  have  been  strange  if  this  did  not  puzzle  John,  for 
it  has  puzzled  some  modern  Christians  who  might  be  sup- 
posed to  have  understood  better  than  did  John  the  princi- 
ples and  spirit  of  Jesus,  but  who  have,  nevertheless,  either 
frankly  deprecated  this  act  of  their  Master,  or  less  frankly 
attempted  to  explain  it  away.-^ 

Partly,  perhaps,  because  of  this  diversity  in  method  and 
spirit,  John's  faith  in  Jesus  seems  to  have  been  very  far 
from  a  clear  and  positive  conviction.  It  is  true  that  he 
pointed  his  own  disciples  to  Jesus  as  "  the  Lamb  of  God 
that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world."  But  he  never 
followed  Jesus  himself.  He  continued  a  separate  ministry, 
baptizing  not  as  a  symbol  of  allegiance  to  Jesus  as  the 
Messiah,  but  only  as  a  pledge  of  repentance  from  sin. 
And  when  later  he  was  imprisoned  by  Herod  in  the 
Castle  of  Machserus,  his  perplexity  at  the  course  of  Jesus 
so  grew  that  he  sent  two  of  his  disciples  to  inquire  whether 
his  cousin  were  really  the  Messiah.  He  seemed  to  say, 
"  I  know  you  cannot  be  a  false  pretender  ;  I  know  you  too 
well  for  that.  But  have  I  been  mistaken  in  thinking  you 
the  Messiah  ?"  So  evident,  indeed,  is  this  later  perplexity 
of  John  that  Strauss,  who  seems  to  think  that  Bible  char- 
acters have  an  immunity  from  the  contradictions  and  per- 
plexities which  beset  ordinary  mortals,  supposes  that  John's 
testimony  to  Jesus  must  have  been  invented  at  a  later 
date  and  attributed  to  John  for  controversial  purposes. 

If  from  John  the  Baptist  we  turn  to  his  disciples,  their 
faith  seems  to  have  been  neither  clearer  nor  stronger  than 
his.  They  go  to  see  Jesus  ;  they  are  impressed  by  his 
personality  ;  but  they  do    not  appear  to  entertain  at  all 

^  By  the  invention  of  the  two-wine  theory,  which  has  no  standing  with  modern 
scholars,  and  is  refuted,  if  additional  refutation  were  necessary,  by  the  substan- 
tially unanimous  testimony  of  all  who  are  familiar  with  the  life  and  customs  of 
the  East. 


22  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

the  idea  that  he  is  the  Messiah  ;  nor  do  they  attach  them- 
selves to  him  and  become  his  followers  until  a  considerably- 
later  period.  They  remain  with  him  a  little  while — how 
long  we  cannot  tell — and  then  return  to  their  Galilean 
home  and  their  fishing,  where  some  months  later  Jesus 
finds  them  and  calls  them  to  follow  him. 

John  believes  Jesus  to  be  the  Messiah ;  but  does  not 
follow  him.  John's  disciples  go  to  confer  with  him,  and 
are  impressed  by  his  personality;  but  they  do  not  follow 
him.  And  Jesus  himself,  turning  his  back  on  the  ministry 
of  John  at  the  river  Jordan,  and  stopping  his  own  ministry, 
which  is  already  beginning  to  be  accompanied  by  more 
converts  than  that  of  his  predecessor,  goes  off  to  Galilee 
to  enjoy  himself  and  add  to  the  enjoyment  of  others  at  a 
wedding-feast,  while  his  first  pseudo  followers  leave  both 
John  and  Jesus  and  return  to  their  fishing. 

This  is  a  strange  beginning  for  a  religious  life  which  is 
to  overspread  and  conquer  the  world.  But  Jesus  is  not 
in  haste.  He  will  leave  Peter  and  Andrew  and  James 
and  John  time  to  think  over  what  they  have  seen  and 
heard.  The  kingdom  of  God  is  a  growth  ;  and  growth  is 
a  gradual  process  from  small  beginnings. 


CHAPTER  VII.— THE  CHALLENGE 

John  ii.,  13-25;  iii.,  1-21 


If  John  the  Baptizer  or  his  disciples  thought,  as  has 
sometimes  been  thought  since,  that  Jesus  lacked  in  virile 
courage,  that  he  expected  to  conquer  evil  without  offering 
it  battle,  that  the  only  might  he  would  put  forth  would  be 
the  "  irresistible  might  of  meekness,"  the  act  by  which  in 
Jerusalem  he  initiated  his  public  ministry^  should  have 
sufficed  to  correct  the  misapprehension. 

John,  bold  as  he  was,  had  never  gone  up  to  Jerusalem 
to  challenge  the  priesthood  there.  Denouncing  the  cor- 
ruption of  his  time,  he  had  remained  apart  from  it.  Out- 
spoken and  fearless,  he  was  still  a  recluse.  Himself  the 
son  of  a  priest,  perhaps  a  traditional  reverence  for  the 
priesthood  combined  with  an  innate  aversion  to  the  crowd- 
ed city  and  an  unconscious  prudence  to  keep  him  out  of 
the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  powerful  priestly  clique 
which  controlled  the  miscalled  Holy  City.  But  neither 
traditional  reverence  nor  considerations  of  personal  pru- 
dence ever  had  the  slightest  effect  on  the  course  of  Jesus. 
His  reverence  was  for  spiritual  realities  ;  he  had  none  for 
shams.  And  to  prudential  considerations  of  a  purely  per- 
sonal character  he  appears  to  have  been  wholly  indifferent. 
Returning  from  his  brief  holiday  in  Galilee,  he  went 
directly  to  Jerusalem,  and  there  began  his  public  career  by 
an  act  of  unmistakable  defiance  to  the  Jewish  hierarchy. 

The  Jews  flocking  to  Jerusalem  from  all  quarters  of  the 
globe,  especially  at  the  Passovers,  required  oxen,  sheep, 
and  doves  for  their  sacrifices,  and  conveniences  for  ex- 
changing their  foreign  money  for  the  Jewish  coins,  which 
alone  were  received  for  Temple  tribute.  The  marketmen 
had  gradually  drawn  nearer  and  nearer  the  Temple,  until 

^  I  agree  with  Ewald,  Edersheim,  and  others  in  thinking  that  John  correctly 
puts  the  expulsion  of  the  traders  from  the  Temple  at  the  beginning  of  Christ's 
ministry.  Whether  there  was  a  second  expulsion  at  the  close  ot  nis  ministry 
need  not  be  considered  here. 


24  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

at  last  they  had  ensconced  themselves  in  its  outer  court. 
This  magnificent  porch,  called  the  Court  of  the  Gentiles, 
because  no  Gentile  was  allowed  to  pass  beyond  its  inner 
gates  into  the  more  sacred  inclosures  beyond,  had  become 
a  market-place,  where  the  lowing  of  cattle,  the  bleating  of 
sheep,  the  cooing  of  doves,  and  the  chink  of  the  money- 
changers dispelled  all  thoughts  of  worship,  and  made  all 
public  instruction,  to  which  this  court  was  naturally 
adapted,  quite  impossible.  The  bargaining  spirit  of  the 
Hebrew  was  not  exorcised  by  the  atmosphere  of  the 
Temple ;  and  this  market-place,  like  most  Oriental  ex- 
changes of  the  present  day,  was  the  scene  of  overcharges, 
false  representations,  scarcely  concealed  frauds,  and  per- 
petual haggling  and  dispute.  Nor  was  this  all.  The 
family  of  Annas  controlled  the  priesthood,  of  which  Annas 
was  at  times  the  nominal  and  always  the  real  head.  This 
desecration  of  the  Temple  was  carried  on  with  his  approval 
and  for  his  profit.  So  large  a  share  did  he  and  his  family 
have  in  the  trafficking  that  the  market  was  known  as  the 
Bazaar  of  Annas  ;^  the  profits  of  the  transactions,  which 
legally  belonged  to  the  Temple,  were  seized  upon  by  him 
and  his  dependents.  In  a  word,  what  in  modern  language 
is  called  a  *'  ring  "  had  control  of  the  Temple,  used  its 
outer  court  as  a  market-place,  practically  coerced  all  pil- 
grims to  purchase  in  this  market-place,  and  grew  rich  by 
an  illegal  spoliation  of  the  people  and  profanation  of  the 
Temple.  It  is  probable  that  Jesus  had  often  been  in 
Jerusalem  before,  had  seen  this  desecration,  and  had 
shared  the  indignation  of  the  common  people — an  indigna- 
tion apparently  wholly  powerless  to  remedy  the  wrong. 

But,  according  to  the  Jewish  habit  of  thought,  wrongs 
which  there  was  no  legal  power  to  correct,  a  prophet,  com- 
missioned of  God,  might  correct  without  using  any  forms 
of  law.  On  this  eventful  day,  Jesus,  entering  the  Court 
of  the  Gentiles,  stooped,  gathered  from  the  floor  some  of 
the  rushes  with  which  it  was  strewed  as  a  litter  for  the 
cattle,  wove  out  of  them  a  quite  harmless  whip,  and  then, 
advancing  upon  the  traffickers,  with  flaming  eye  drove 
them  from  the  courts  which  they  had  so  long  profaned. 
It  was  perhaps  because  John  was  present  at  this  scene  that 

1  See  Edersheim,  "  Life  and  Times  of  Jesus  the  Messiah,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  372. 


THE    CHALLENGE  25 

afterwards,  in  the  Island  of  Patmos,  when  he  saw  One  with 
eyes  aflame,  feet  like  brass,  and  a  voice  like  the  sound  of 
many  waters,  it  reminded  him  of  Jesus — not  improbably  as 
he  appeared  in  this  memorable  scene.  "  Conscience  does 
make  cowards  of  us  all ;"  and  the  traffickers,  knowing  that 
their  occupation  was  illegal,  knowing  better  than  the  peo- 
ple knew  how  corrupt  was  the  trafific  they  were  carrying  on 
knowing  the  deep  popular  discontent,  and  surprised  by 
the  suddenness  of  the  onslaught  and  the  moral  power  of 
the  indignant  prophet,  made  no  stand,  but  fled  without 
resistance  or  remonstrance. 

When  later  they  did  remonstrate,  Jesus  made  no  attempt 
to  pacify  them.  "  You  are  destroying  this  Temple,"  he 
replied  ;  "  and  I  will  build  it  up  again."  When  men  divert 
a  temple  from  its  legitimate  use  as  a  place  of  public  wor- 
ship and  public  instruction,  and  convert  it  into  a  means  for 
self-aggrandizement,  satisfied  ambition,  social  enjoyment, 
or  party  strife  and  party  victory,  they  destroy  it.  It  ceases 
to  be  a  temple.  It  becomes  a  market-place,  a  pjblic 
forum,  a  social  club,  a  party  camp.  This  was  what  the 
hierarchy  had  done  to  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem.  And 
Christ  would,  by  his  death  and  resurrection,  rebuild  what 
they  had  destroyed.  Christianity  is  Judaism  risen  from  the 
dead.  Whenever  ecclesiastics  expel  the  spirit  of  faith  and 
hope  and  love  from  a  religious  service  or  a  religious  organi- 
zation, they  destroy  its  religious  character.  Whenever 
prophets  bring  back  in  new  forms  that  spirit,  they  rebuild, 
though  in  new  structures,  the  temple  which  apostasy  has 
destroyed.  This — not  merely  a  prophecy  of  his  resurrec- 
tion, still  less  of  the  literal  overthrow  of  Herod's  Temple 
by  Titus — appears  to  me  to  be  involved  in  Christ's  some- 
what enigmatical  declaration,  "Destroy  this  temple,  and  in 
three  days  I  will  build  it  again."  The  challenge  of  his 
words  was  as  unmistakable  in  its  defiance  as  the  challenge 
of  his  deed.  From  that  day  to  the  tragical  end  the  hier- 
archy was  the  implacable  and  mortal  enemy  of  the  Man 
who  had  brought  upon  it  public  disgrace,  threatened  it 
with  the  loss  of  its  ill-gotten  gains,  and  espoused  against 
it  the  cause  of  the  common  people. 

To  rebuke  a  single  person,  face  to  face,  requires  some- 
times a  courage  as  great,  though  of  a  different  order,  as  to 


26  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

withstand  a  mob.  The  former  task  is  especially  difficult 
for  the  kindliest  natures,  for  men  of  true  and  tender  sym- 
pathy, who  incline  to  regard  all  men  at  their  best,  and 
whose  love  makes  them  reluctant  to  inflict  pain  and  seem 
to  quench  the  nascent  but  irresolute  inclination  toward  a 
higher  life. 

The  Pharisees,  that  is,  the  Puritans  of  the  first  century, 
were  divided,  though  not  sharply,  into  two  classes — the 
mere  ceremonialists,  and  the  men  of  a  real  though  not 
profound  morality.  One  of  the  latter  school,  Nicodemus 
by  name,  as  profoundly  affected  as  a  man  of  such  a  type 
could  be  by  the  strong  personality  of  Jesus,  came  to  him, 
after  the  expulsion  of  the  traders  from  the  Temple,  for  a 
quiet  conference.  To  understand  the  conversation  which 
ensued,  which  John  alone  has  reported,  the  reader  must 
bear  in  mind  that  the  doctrine  of  the  "  new  birth  "  was  a 
perfectly  familiar  doctrine  to  the  Pharisee.-^  He  held 
that  when  a  pagan  became  a  Jew,  and  so  a  worshiper  of 
the  true  God,  he  m-ust  be  baptized  as  a  symbol  of  the 
change ;  in  this  baptism  all  old  faiths  were  washed  away ; 
he  emerged  from  the  baptism  a  "  new  creature ;"  he  was 
said  to  be  "  born  again  ;"  he  took  on  a  new  name  ;  and  so 
radical  was  the  supposed  change  that  some  rabbis  taught 
that  all  old  relationships  were  abolished,  and  that  he  might 
virtuously  marry  his  own  sister  if  he  chose.  Nicodemus 
frankly  recognized  in  Jesus  a  new  prophet,  and  asked  him 
as  to  his  teaching.  And  Jesus  answered  as  frankly  that  it 
was  not  new  teaching  he  or  any  Jew  needtd,  but  a  new  life. 
The  Jew  as  well  as  the  pagan  needed  to  be  born  again; 
needed  to  be  baptized ;  needed  to  have  his  old  concep- 
tion of  righteousness  washed  away  ;  needed  a  new  concep- 
tion to  take  its  place.  When  Nicodemus  attempted  to 
turn  aside  the  point  of  this  teaching  by  a  sneer,  Jesus 
responded  by  an  expression  of  surprise  that  he,  a  teacher 
of  Israel,  and  perfectly  familiar  with  the  doctrine  of  the 
*'  new  birth,"  should  pretend  not  to  understand  it  when  it 
was  applied  to  himself.  You  also,  he  said,  need  to  receive 
the  Spirit  of  God,  need  by  its  indwelling  to  be  made  a 
"  new  creation,"  need  to  have  failh  in  that  grace  which 
transforms  and  delivers,  and  in  Him  who  brings  it  as  God's 
free  gift  to  man. 

1  See  Edersheim,  "  Life  and  Times  of  Jesus  the  Messiah,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  384. 


THE    CHALLENGE  27 

As,  by  his  expulsion  of  the  traders  and  his  subsequent 
interpretation  of  it,  Jesus  challenged  the  ecclesiasticism 
which  substitutes  ceremonialism  for  worship,  so,  by  his 
pointed  and  unmistakable  declaration  to  Nicodemus,  he 
challenged  the  traditionalism  which  substitutes  opinion  for 
life.  These  two  have  been  the  chief  enemies  of  the  Christ 
in  the  world :  the  one  offering  a  worship  which  is  no  worship, 
and  the  other  a  righteousness  which  is  no  righteousness ;  the 
one  robbing  all  worship  of  its  reality,  and  the  other  all 
obedience  of  its  virtue,  by  that  insincerity  which  is  com- 
mon to  ceremonies  which  are  without  self-surrender,  and  to 
both  deeds  and  creeds  which  are  without  faith. 


CHAPTER  VIII.— CHRIST  AS  A 
CONVERSATIONIST  ^ 

John  iii.,  22-36  ;  iv.,  1-42 


It  may  at  first  seem  strange  to  us,  as  it  evidently  did 
seem  strange  to  Christ's  disciples,  that,  after  moving  all 
Jerusalem  by  his  bold  attack  upon  the  traffickers  in  the 
Temple,  and  after  ^reaching  to  throngs  on  the  banks  of 
Jordan,  where  more  tlocked  not  only  to  listen  but  to  be 
baptized  than  had  come  to  John's  preaching,  Jesus  should 
seemingly  turn  his  back  upon  this  work,  and  be  next  found 
spending  his  time  in  a  quiet  conversation  with  an  heretical 
and  much-divorced  woman.  But  if  we  study  Christ's  life 
at  all  thoughtfully,  we  can  hardly  fail  to  note  that  he  dealt 
with  individuals  at  least  as  much  as  with  assemblies,  and 
that  conversation  w^as  the  method  of  his  instruction  rather 
than  oratory.  The  story  suggested  for  our  reflection  to- 
day illustrates  both  his  method  and  his  power  as  a  conver- 
sationist. 

Wearied  with  his  journey,  he  sits  down  to  rest  by  the 
side  of  a  great  well,  or  cistern,  with  steps  leading  from  the 
well-curb  to  the  water  below.  The  women  come  out  from 
the  neighboring  villages,  with  their  water-pots  on  their 
heads,  to  draw  the  w^ater  for  their  houses.  As  he  sits  there, 
a  woman  comes  from  the  village  with  her  water-pot.  He 
opens  the  conversation  with  what  is  the  surest  road  to  a 
woman's  heart — he  asks  her  for  a  favor.  "  Give  me  a 
drink,"  he  says.  She  draws  back  astonished.  "You,  a 
Jew,  ask  me,  a  woman  of  Samaria,  for  a  drink  of  water  ?" 
By  a  transition  so  natural  that  perhaps  we  may  never  have 
thought  that  there  was  a  transition  even,  he  turns  instantly 
from  material  to  spiritual  things  :  "  If  you  knew  who  it  is 
that  is  talking  with  you,  you  would  have  asked  me  for 
living  water."     She   answers  with  a  sarcasm  :  "  Art  thou 

''The  most  important  feature  in  John  iii.,  22-36  is  John  the  Baptizer's  testimony 
to  Jesus  as  the  Christ,  and  to  this  1  have  aheady  referred  in  Chapters  IV.  and  VI. 

28 


CHRIST    AS    A    CONVERSATIONIST  29 

greater  than  our  father  Jacob  ?  Give  me  this  living  water, 
that  I  come  no  more  here  to  draw,  weary  and  tired."  He 
surprises  her  with  a  summons  that  brings  the  story  of  her 
life  instantly  to  herself:  "Go,  call  thy  husband."  "I 
have  no  husband."  "  Thou  sayest  truly  thou  hast  no 
husband  :  thou  hast  had  five  husbands."  She  parries  the 
thrust  with  a  change  in  the  conversation.  "  You  are  a 
prophet,  I  see.  Where  should  we  worship — in  Jerusalem 
or  in  this  mountain  ?"  A  less  skillful  conversationist  would 
have  pushed  his  apparent  advantage — pressed  heavily  that 
which  he  had  brought  to  bear  on  her  conscience ;  but  not 
so  Christ.  Christ  allows  her  to  change  the  topic.  He 
has  brought  to  her  own  conscience  the  sense  of  her  sin, 
and  he  allows  her  to  change  the  topic.  The  time  is  coming 
when  God  will  be  worshiped  neither  here  nor  in  Jerusalem. 
God  is  a  Spirit,  and  they  that  worship  him  in  spirit  and  in 
truth,  they  are  his  worshipers,  wherever  they  may  be.  She 
forgets  her  errand — forgets  that  she  has  come  for  water; 
forgets  Christ's  thirst ;  forgets  everything ;  and  hurries 
back  to  the  city — ordained  in  this  brief  conversation  to  be 
a  prophet  and  missionary,  and  to  be  the  first  to  preach 
the  Gospel  of  a  Messiah  in  the  Samaritan  city. 

The  first  thought  that  must  strike  us  in  this  narrative 
is,  as  I  have  already  said,  Christ's  use  of  conversation  as  a 
method  of  spiritual  instruction.  I  can  find  in  the  Four 
Gospels  but  five  true  Discourses ;  the  rest  are  conversa- 
tions, or  begin  as  conversations,  though  they  become  mono- 
logues. The  two  greatest  teachers  of  all  time,  Christ  and 
Socrates,  taught  chiefly  by  conversation.  There  is  no  way 
to  a  human  heart  so  direct ;  and  yet  none  that  we  treat  so 
lightly,  if  not  contemptuously.  The  writer  gets  no  re- 
sponse from  voice  or  face.  The  orator  gets  a  feeble 
response  from  a  few  speaking  faces  in  the  audience.  But 
in  conversation  two  souls  are  opened  to  each  other,  and 
their  inner  lives  intermingle.  He  who  teaches  through  con- 
versation knows  what  is  received,  what  rejected,  what 
progress  in  imparting  truth  is  made.  In  conversation  lies 
the  best  and  deepest  part  of  our  influence  ;  and  yet  we 
treat  it  in  so  careless  and  casual  a  manner  that  we  scarcely 
think  what  we  are  doing,  still  less  what  we  might  do  with  it. 

Not  less  important  to  note  as  characteristic  of  every 
good  conversationist,    as    pre-eminently   characteristic    of 


so 


THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 


Christ,  is  his  broad  and  catholic  sympathies.  We  open 
the  Gospel  of  John,  and  in  the  third  chapter  we  read  the 
story  of  Christ's  conversation  with  the  Jewish  Rabbi.  He 
is  on  the  same  plane  with  the  Jewish  Rabbi,  talks  in  the 
metaphors  which  that  Rabbi  understands,  has  an  apprecia- 
tion of  his  soul-life,  and  enters  into  it.  We  turn  the  page. 
We  come  to  a  conversation  with  a  woman  of  Samaria, 
ignorant,  degraded,  sinful,  not  even  a  Jew,  with  no  appar- 
ent community — social,  intellectual,  or  moral — between 
them,  but  a  great  gulf  fixed  ;  and  yet  he  has  sympathy 
with  her.  We  turn  a  few  pages  further  on  in  this  same 
Gospel,  and  we  find  him  entering  into  conversation  with 
enemies.  We  turn  a  few  pages  more,  and  we  find  him 
sitting  at  the  last  table  with  his  disciples,  friends,  and  com- 
panions, filled  with  their  thoughts,  their  perplexities,  their 
interrogatories  ;  but  in  every  case  alike — with  the  Jewish 
Rabbi,  with  the  Samaritan  woman,  with  the  hostile  Jew, 
with  the  friendly  disciples — in  sympathy,  in  touch — what 
we  call  tact. 

Tact — what  is  it  ?  The  touch  of  one  soul  with  another 
soul — sympathy.  I  can  talk  music  a  little  with  the  musi- 
cian, for  I  am  fond  of  music ;  less  of  art  with  the  artist, 
for  I  know  that  less  ;  about  theology  with  the  theologian, 
if  he  is  not  too  far  removed  from  me  theologically ;  but  if 
I  cannot  talk  with  the  car  conductor,  or  the  brakeman,  or 
the  driver,  or  the  hod-carrier,  or  the  day-laborer  in  my  cellar 
or  in  my  country  place,  it  is  because  my  sympathies  are 
narrow,  because,  somehow  or  other,  I  fail  to  have  that 
largeness  of  sympathy  which  enters  into  every  human  life. 

We  see,  too,  that  Christ's  sympathies  were  as  quick  as 
they  were  catholic.  He  had  sympathy  with  all  men,  and 
he  had  quick,  responsive  sympathy.  His  soul  was  recep- 
tive as  well  as  distributive.  He  was  as  quick  to  receive 
impression  as  he  was  to  give  it  forth.  The  musician  plays 
on  the  keys  of  the  organ.  They  are  inert,  and  answer  to 
his  touch.  But  when  the  speaker  plays  on  a  human  soul, 
he  must  be  keys  as  well  as  fingers — he  must  respond  as 
well  as  move.  The  speaker  plays  on  the  hearer  only  as 
the  hearer  plays  on  the  speaker.  He  enters  the  heart  of 
his  auditor  only  as  his  auditor  enters  his  heart.  So  there 
is  no  flash  of  thought,  question  of  perplexity,  sorrow,  trouble, 
anywhere,  that  flings  itself  out  unto  Christ  that  he  does  not 


CHRIST    AS    A    CONVERSATIONIST  3 1 

instantly  meet.  Intellectual  genius  in  this  certainly,  but 
something  more  than  that — quick,  ready,  responsive, 
answering  sympathies,  love  for  all  men,  love  that  instantly 
answers  to  every  human  need — longs  to  alleviate  it. 

Because  he  had  this  quick  and  catholic  sympathy  he 
drew  men  out.  He  made  them  express  themselves  ;  often- 
times against  their  will  evoked  their  doubts,  evoked  their 
sins,  evoked  their  difficulties.  Men  open  to  him  their 
souls,  and  tell  him  what  there  is  of  their  doubts  and  dis- 
beliefs. They  fling  open  the  door  of  their  hearts  and  show 
themselves  to  him.  This  is  a  rare  power — this  power  of 
drawing  men  out  of  themselves — worth  more  than  oratory, 
more  than  rhetoric,  more  than  eloquence,  more  than  the 
skill  of  the  poet,  more  thin  the  skill  of  the  preacher — this 
power  to  get  into  men's  and  women's  hearts  and  lives,  and 
enter  their  secret  souls  and  bring  out  their  natures.  He 
knew  what  was  in  man,  it  is  said;  and  more  than  once, 
we  are  told,  he  saw  them  doubting  among  themselves,  and 
phrased  his  answer  to  their  doubting.  It  is  said  that  this 
was  supernatural  knowledge,  and  perhaps  it  was  ;  yet  there 
was  that  in  him  which  saw  the  shadow  on  the  face,  which 
quickly  got  the  impression  of  another's  answering  thought, 
intuitively  and  instinctively,  and,  by  that  power  of  sym- 
pathy which  cannot  be  defined  or  interpreted,  perceived 
the  inward  life  and  met  it. 

He  had,  too,  that  gift — what  shall  I  call  it  ? — poet-gift, 
prophetic  gift,  spiritual  gift  ? — which  belongs  to  men  who 
always  live  in  the  eternal  world,  and  see  how  everything 
physical  is  a  symbol  of  the  eternal.  Most  of  us  do  not. 
We  are  living  in  the  earthy  life,  and  if  we  undertake  to  say 
anything  on  the  subject  of  religion  to  a  comrade,  we  have 
to  go  out  and  drag  it  in ;  and  when  we  do  that  we  destroy 
the  value  of  the  word  which  we  have  spoken.  Truth  can- 
not be  brought  into  the  court  of  a  man's  conscience  as  a 
criminal  is  by  a  policeman.  But  when  a  man  so  lives  in 
the  eternal  that  everything  physical  suggests  the  eternal, 
the  transition  is  not  strange  to  others  because  it  is  not 
strained  to  him.  So,  to  Christ,  a  drink  of  water  suggests 
the  water  of  life.  So,  when  men  come  asking  him  to  show 
another  miracle — feeding  thousands  with  bread — he  speaks 
instinctively,  simply,  naturally,  of  the  bread  of  life. 

We  may  have  quick  and  catholic  sympathies,  power  to 


32  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

draw  men  out,  and  something  even  of  a  poetic  gift,  and  be 
what  men  call  good  conversationists,  and  yet  carry  only 
entertainment  and  good  fellowship  with  us.  But  Christ  did 
more  than  that.  Conversation  with  him  was  always  the 
means  and  instrument  of  a  noble,  a  divine  ministry. 

It  is  often  said  that  Christ  never  declined  an  invitation. 
He  went  to  all  men,  to  all  homes,  into  all  company,  into 
all  society.  It  is  true.  But  wherever  he  went  he  carried 
his  message  of  the  love  of  God.  He  sat  at  the  table,  and 
when  he  saw  men  crowd  for  the  best  places,  he  told  them 
a  parable,  and  bid  them  not  do  so.  He  went  with  his 
friends  to  sit  down  at  the  table,  and,  there  being  no  one  to 
wash  their  feet,  no  one  willing  to  take  the  servant's  duty 
on  himself,  he  girded  himself  with  the  towel,  washed  their 
feet,  and  thus  taught  them  a  lesson  of  purity  and  humility. 
He  turned  the  humblest  and  least  incidents  of  life  into 
moral  lessons.  He  was  always — if  one  may  say  so — master 
of  the  conversation.  He  was  not  carried  by  its  drift 
wherever  it  might  happen  to  go,  but,  like  a  skillful  helms- 
man having  his  hand  on  the  helm,  guided  it  in  what  direc- 
tion he  would  have  it  to  go.  He  did  not  do  this  by  battle. 
You  may  look  in  the  Four  Gospels  in  vain  for  a  debate  in 
which  Christ  ever  took  part.  He  answered  questions,  but 
he  never  fenced.  Not  by  standing  for  one  opinion  against 
another,  not  by  combating,  but  through  the  power  of  sym- 
pathy, of  touch,  of  the  truth  of  which  he  was  always  and 
everywhere  the  Minister  and  Prophet,  he  carried  the  truth 
into  the  hearts  of  men. 


The  Life  of  Christ 


CHAPTER   IX.— CHRIST'S   DEFINITION   OF   HIS 

MISSION 

Luke  iii.,  18-20;  iv.,  14-31 ;  John  iv.,  46-54 


John  the  Baptizer's  courageous  denunciation  of  the 
flagrant  iniquity  of  Herod  had  led  to  his  arrest  and  im- 
prisonment, and  this  had  removed  the  only  danger  which 
Jesus  feared — the  danger  of  an  apparent  rivalry  between 
his  ministry  and  that  of  John.  He  had  already  left  the 
Jordan  when  it  was  reported  that  more  were  coming  to 
his  preaching  and  his  baptism  than  to  John's.  Now  that 
all  danger  of  a  possible  denominational  strife  between  the 
disciples  of  the  two  prophets  was  removed,  he  took  up 
John  the  Baptist's  message,  and  began  to  preach,  "  The 
kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand."  His  preaching  was  very 
simple  but  very  powerful.  Perhaps  it  would  be  more  cor- 
rect to  say  very  simple  and  therefore  very  powerful.  He 
spoke  to  the  common  people  in  their  vernacular,  using 
illustrations  drawn  from  their  common  life,  yet  never 
descending  from  the  high  plane  of  noble  spiritual  instruc- 
tion. He  used  no  arts  of  elocution  or  rhetoric ;  ordina- 
rily sat  when  speaking;  was  not,  therefore,  a  dramatic 
speaker.  His  addresses  contain  no  eloquent  passages 
such  as  a  school-boy  may  declaim,  nor  are  his  sermons 
included  among  what  are  commonly  called  the  great  liter- 
ary classics  of  ancient  time.  He  was  not  scholastic — bor- 
rowed no  power  from  the  treasure-house  of  the  past ;  nor 
hierarchical — he  used  not  the  power  of  a  priestly  class. 
His  eloquence  lay  less  in  his  method  than  in  the  contents 
of  his  message. 

33 


34  'i"HE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

The  world  had  reached  its  lowest  ebb  ;  government  was 
despotic  ;  labor  enslaved ;  the  common  people  hopelessly 
ignorant ;  the  prophets  had  died  out  of  Israel,  and  the  scribes 
had  taken  their  place.  Public  taxation  was  public  rob- 
bery, and  if  one  man,  more  fortunate  than  his  fellows,  man- 
aged to  amass  a  little  property,  his  only  way  of  saving  it 
was  to  bury  it  in  the  ground,  and  so  keep  it  from  the  tax- 
gatherer.  The  common  people  lived  in  that  hopelessness 
which  is  sometimes  mistaken  for  content,  and  looked  back 
to  an  imagined  golden  age  because,  except  as  faith  in  Old 
Testament  prophecy  inspired  an  otherwise  seemingly 
groundless  hope,  they  had  no  future  to  look  forward  to. 

To  this  age  and  occasion  Christ  came  with  the  extraor- 
dinary message  that  the  kingdom  of  God  was  at  hand. 
The  nature  of  his  preaching  is  illustrated  by  the  one  ser- 
mon of  which  we  have  a  very  brief  report  in  the  fourth 
chapter  of  Luke.  He  went  into  the  synagogue  of  the 
village  where  his  boyhood  had  been  passed.  His  reputa- 
tion as  a  reformer  had  preceded  him  from  Judea,  and  he 
was  invited  to  address  the  villagers  from  the  sacred  desk. 
The  roll  containing  the  book  of  Isaiah  was  handed  to  him ; 
he  turned  to  and  read  the  following  passage  : 

The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me,  because  he  hath  anointed 
me  to  preach  the  gospel  to  the  poor:  he  hath  sent  me  to  heal 
the  broken-hearted,  to  preach  deliverance  to  the  captives,  and 
re  overing  of  sight  to  the  blind,  to  set  at  liberty  them  that  are 
bruised,  to  preach  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord. 

"  This  promised  year,"  he  said  to  them,  "  has  arrived. 
I  am  the  Deliverer,  and  this  is  my  mission.  But  you  are 
mistaken  if  you  think  that  this  deliverance  is  coming  only 
to  Israel.  The  pagan  as  well  as  the  Israelite  shares  in  the 
love  and  is  to  receive  the  good  gift  of  the  heavenly  Father." 
Race-prejudice  was  far  greater  in  that  day  than  it  is  in 
this,  bad  as  it  is  now ;  and  it  was  intensified  by  religion, 
which  since  Christ  has  done  something  to  mitigate  it. 
Christ,  in  attacking  this  prejudice,  endeavored  to  avoid  em- 
bittering it,  by  illustrating  the  catholicity  of  God's  grace 
by  familiar  stories  from  Old  Testament  history;  but  the 
endeavor  was  vain.  The  people,  who  had  at  first  listened 
with  pleasure  to  the  prophet's  words,  were  filled  with  wrath 
at  his  implication  that  God  is  the  God  of  the  heathen  as  well 
as  of  the  Jew ;  they  rose  in  a  body  and  would  have  killed  him 


Christ's  definition  of  his  mission  35 

had  he  not  escaped  from  their  hands.  Facing  the  mob  with 
that  grandeur  which  at  times  filled  onlookers  with  awe,  he 
passed  through  the  angry  throng  and  went  his  way. 

We,  in  this  nineteenth  century,  can  hardly  realize  what 
it  is  to  live  without  hope  ;  with  no  expectation  of  a  better 
future  hereafter ;  under  a  despotism  never  to  be  lightened  ; 
under  a  taxation  never  to  be  other  than  spoliation  ;  under 
a  social  system  affording  no  chance  for  education  or  per- 
sonal development.  The  American  must  go  abroad  to  the 
peasantry  of  Russia  or  Egypt  or  India  or  China  to  get  any 
conception  of  the  mental  and  moral  hopelessness  of  the 
common  people  in  the  Roman  Empire,  and  especially  in 
its  provinces,  in  the  first  century.  The  message  of  Christ 
to  this  people  was  a  message  of  hope  :  glad  tidings  to  the 
poor — better  opportunities,  a  larger  distribution  of  wealth, 
more    diffused   and    universal    comfort;    comfort   to   the  A 

broken-hearted — hope  at  the  open  grave,  flowers  for  crape, 
and  the  smile  of  an  anticipated  meeting  mingled  with  the 
tears  of  a  present  separation  ;  deliverance  to  the  captives — 
the  breaking  of  the  scepter  of  despotic  authority,  the 
translation  of  government  from  a  military  to  an  industrial 
and  social  organization,  and  the  emancipation  of  industry 
itself,  first  from  the  bondage  of  slavery,  then  from  the 
bondage  of  feudalism,  finally  from  the  bondage  involved 
in  the  modern  wages  system ;  the  recovering  of  sight  to 
the  blind — hospitals,  asylums,  charitable  provisions  of 
various  kinds  for  the  unfortunate,  the  weak,  the  incompe- 
tent— and  recovering  of  sight  to  the  mentally  blind,  in  the 
establishment  of  universal  systems  of  popular  and  public 
education  ;  liberty  to  those  that  are  bruised — the  emanci- 
pation of  body,  soul,  and  spirit  from  all  the  bruising  man- 
acles which  despotism  has  fastened  upon  humanity  :  this 
was  the  mission  of  Christ — the  mission  which  he  fulfilled 
while  he  lived  ;  the  mission  which  he  left  to  his  followers 
as  their  heritage ;  the  mission  which  the  Church  has  been, 
however  imperfectly,  fulfilling  in  the  centuries  which  have 
rolled  by  since  this  sermon  at  Nazareth  was  preached.-^ 

We  cannot  go  behind  Christ's  own  definition  of  his  mis- 
sion. Nor  can  we  substitute  therefor,  subtract  therefrom, 
nor  add  thereto,  without  wrong  to  him  and  to  ourselves. 

ipor  historic  illustrations  of  the  fulfillment  of  this  mission  see  Dr.  R,  S. 
Storrs's  "Historic  Evidences  of  Christianity  "  and  Charles  S.  Brace's  "  Gesta 
Christi." 


$6  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

He  came,  according  to  his  own  definition,  not  to  form  a 
church  organization,  though  the  church  was  to  be  the 
instrument  for  the  execution  of  his  work ;  not  to  establish 
a  theological  system,  though  truth  was  also  to  be  the 
instrument  of  his  work;  but  to  estabhsh  the  kingdom  of 
righteousness  and  peace  upon  the  earth,  righteousness  in 
place  of  injustice,  peace  in  place  of  war ;  to  establish  the 
kingdom  of  God  upon  the  earth,  and  that  is  the  kingdom 
of  liberty,  of  righteousness,  and  of  peace.  Nothing  is  true 
Christian  theology  which  does  not  directly  or  indirectly  help 
to  fulfill  this  mission  as  Christ  has  defined  it ;  and  no 
society  is  a  true  Christian  church,  nor  a  part  of  the  true 
Christian  Church,  which  is  not  endeavoring  to  fulfill  the 
mission  which  Christ  in  this  first  sermon  declared  to  be 
his  mission,  and  which,  in  his  farewell  words,  after  his 
resurrection,  he  gave  to  his  disciples,  following  in  his  foot- 
steps and  inspired  by  his  spirit,  to  fulfill. 


CHAPTER  X.—"  A  DAY  WITH  JESUS  " 
Mark  i.,  16-45;  Luke  v.,  i-ii 


In  our  study  of  the  life  of  Christ,  attracted  by  the  more 
romantic  and  striking  features  of  his  character,  we  are  apt 
to  pass  by  in  ignorance  the  more  prosaic,  though  not  less 
essential,  virtues.  By  many  students  of  the  Gospel  his 
industry  and  energy  are  probably  but  little  considered. 
Renan,  in  his  picture  of  the  Galilean  ministry  of  Christ, 
gives  an  impression  of  a  purely  idyllic  life,  a  sort  of  per- 
petual picnic  and  continuous  ovation.  So  profoundly  has 
the  inward  peace  of  the  Master  impressed  itself  on  the 
minds  of  his  disciples  that  few  realize  that  this  peace 
was  maintained  in  the  midst  of  a  life  of  ceaseless  activity, 
continual  conflict,  almost  unbroken  external  excitement. 
It  is  quite  safe  to  say  that  no  man  ever  accomplished  so 
much  in  so  brief  a  public  life  as  was  accomplished  by  Jesus 
Christ  between  his  baptism  and  his  crucifixion.  Luther's 
personal  ministry  lasted  something  over  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury ;  John  Wesley's,  about  seventeen  years  ;  Jesus  Christ's, 
a  little  over  three  years.  During  these  three  years  he 
personally  preached  in  all  the  principal  towns  and  cities  of 
Palestine.  He  traveled  hundreds  of  miles  on  foot.  He 
carried  on  innumerable  reported  and  unreported  conversa- 
tions with  individual  inquirers  and  individual  critics.  He 
acted  as  physician,  healing  probably  hundreds  who  came 
to  him  for  help,  ministering  to  them  with  his  own  hands. 
He  selected  companions  to  be  his  immediate  disciples,  to 
learn  from  him  his  principles  and  promulgate  them  after 
he  had  gone  ;  and  he  so  imbued  them  with  those  principles 
and  with  his  spirit  that,  instead  of  being  scattered  by  his 
death,  they  were  brought  more  closely  together,  and  formed 
an  organization  which  has  since,  in  different  forms,  ex- 
tended over  and,  by  its  spiritual  influence,  dominated  the 
entire  civilized  world.  Wherever  he  went  he  was  thronged 
by  crowds,  sometimes  enthusiastic  and  admiring,  some- 

37 


38  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

times  demanding  help  which  always  cost  him  vital  energy, 
sometimes  hostile  and  even  threatening  personal  violence. 
The  houses  of  his  friends  furnished  him  no  real  opportunity 
for  repose,  for  the  clamorous  crowds  flowed  into  them, 
overrunning  all  barriers.  If  he  crossed  the  Lake  of  Gen- 
nesaret,  seeking  a  little  quiet  in  the  comparatively  deserted 
hills  on  the  opposite  shore,  the  multitude  followed  after 
him,  some  by  boats  and  some  on  foot.  If  he  left  Palestine 
altogether,  and  sought  to  escape  the  throng  in  a  pagan  com- 
munity, he  found  that  his  reputation  had  gone  before  him 
and  he  could  not  be  hid.  Apparently  he  had  only  two 
resources  lor  repose.  He  seems  to  have  been  fond  of  the 
water,  and  sometimes  to  have  sailed  out  upon  the  lake  and 
there  secured  a  little  exemption  from  the  crowd.  Once  so 
weary  was  he  that  the  tossing  to  and  fro  of  the  boat  in  a 
tempest,  sufficiently  severe  to  affright  stout-hearted  sailors, 
failed  to  disturb  him.  His  other  resource  was  to  wait  until 
the  world  was  wrapped  in  sleep  and  then  go  up  on  some  of 
the  hills,  among  which  he  passed  most  of  his  life,  and  secure 
for  solitude,  meditation,  and  prayer  a  little  time  from  the 
hours  which  man  generally  gives  to  slumber. 

The  Scripture  suggested  for  our  study  to-day  is  mainly 
occupied  with  giving  a  picture  of  one  day  in  the  life  of 
Jesus.  It  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  this  day  was 
but  one  of  many  equally  full  of  service.-^ 

The  Sea  of  Galilee,  a  lake  in  size  and  shape  somewhat 
similar  to  Lake  Luzerne  in  Switzerland  Loch  Lomond  in 
Scotland,  or  our  own  Winnipesaukee,  was  in  the  time  of 
Christ  the  center  of  a  teeming  and  busy  population.  No 
less  than  six  cities  of  considerable  size  were  crowded  along 
thirteen  miles  of  coast-line  on  its  western  and  northwestern 
shores  ;  its  waters  furnished  employment  for  hundreds  of 
fishermen  ;  lying  on  the  direct  caravan  route  between  the 
East  and  the  Mediterranean  shore,  it  was  the  center  of  a 
busy  trade  ;  it  was  the  watering-place  of  the  wealthy  and 
the  fashionable  at  certain  seasons  of  the  year ;  and  on  the 
hillsides  around  were  cultivated  vineyards,  and  in  the 
fertile  plains  the  farmer  turned  the  furrow  and  dropped  his 
seed.  Here,  therefore,  were  gathered  representatives  of 
every  class,  and  their  vocations  furnished  the  material  for 

1  The  student  who  can  do  so  is  recommended  to  read  Delitzsch's  "  A  Day 
with  Jesus  Christ." 


**  A    DAY    WITH    JESUS  "  39 

every  type  of  parable  :  the  merchantman  seeking  goodly 
pearls,  the  net  cast  into  the  sea,  the  sower  sowing  his 
seed,  the  vineyard  with  its  unfruitful  tree,  the  guests  in- 
vited to  a  royal  marriage  feast.  Cast  out  from  Nazareth, 
Christ  came  down  to  Capernaum,  one  of  the  principal 
cities  upon  this  lake,  and  made  it  his  home,  so  far  as  he 
could  be  said  to  have  any  home.  The  disciples  of  John 
the  Baptizer,  who  had  for  a  little  while  gathered  about  him 
on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  had  gone  back  to  their  peasant 
occupations.     Jesus  Christ  was  alone. 

It  was  apparently  upon  a  Friday  that  he  finds  four  of 
these  men,  after  an  all-night  fishing  expedition,  washing 
their  nets  on  the  shore  of  the  lake.  He  begs  the  loan  of 
one  of  their  boats,  pushes  it  out  a  few  feet  from  the  shore, 
and,  sitting  down  in  it,  talks  to  the  people  gathered  in  a 
natural  amphitheater  upon  the  beach.  His  st  rmon  over, 
he  turns  to  Simon  and  bids  him  push  out  into  deeper  water 
and  throw  his  nets  again.  It  was  hardly  to  be  expected 
that  a  fisherman  who  had  toiled  all  night  in  vain  would 
take  directions  respecting  his  own  craft  from  the  son 
of  a  carpenter.  But  there  was  something  in  the  person- 
ality of  J^sus  Christ  which  overrode  all  such  prejudices. 
Simon  followed  the  direction,  and  the  net  was  filled  to 
breaking. 

This  is  the  time,  strangely  inopportune  it  would  naturally 
seem,  which  Jesus  chooses  in  which  to  call  on  these  four 
fishermen  to  leave  their  work  and  attach  themselves  to 
him ;  but  Jesus  was  accustomed  to  choose  times  which 
afforded  a  test  of  character.  The  four  fishermen  stand 
the  test;  they  leave  their  catch  of  fish,  their  nets,  their 
boats,  with  some  of  their  comrades,  attracted  by  no  other 
promise  than  this,  that  they  shall  be  successful  in  catching 
men.  Not  till  some  time  after,  it  must  be  remembered, 
did  these  disciples  come  to  a  settled  faith  in  Jesus  as 
the  promised  Messiah,  and  not  till  after  his  death  and 
resurrection  did  they  have  any  true  conception  of  what  his 
Messiahhhip  meant. 

The  next  day — certainly  within  a  day  or  two  after — Jesus 
enters  into  the  synagogue  at  Capernaum,  and  repeats  there 
his  message  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand.  The  power 
of  his  glad  tidings,  which  evokes  all  that  is  manliest  and 
divinest  in  his  auditors,  and  fills  them  with  a  new  hope  for 


40  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

themselves  and  their  fellows,  is  felt  by  the  audience,  who 
recognize  the  fact  that  here  is  a  preacher  of  a  different 
sort  from  that  of  the  hair-splitting,  technical,  scholastic 
scribes.  A  lunatic  in  the  synagogue,  whom  the  people  of 
that  age  believed  to  be  possessed  of  an  evil  spirit,  inter- 
rupts the  service ;  the  Master  cures  hitn  with  a  word.-^ 
The  lunatic  in  that  age  was  looked  upon,  not,  as  now, 
with  sympathy,  but  with  reprobation,  and  Christ's  response 
to  the  interruption  of  the  service,  not  by  an  angry  rebuke, 
but  by  a  merciful  remedy,  probably  quite  as  much  as  the 
remedy  itself,  surprised  the  people. 

The  service  over,  Jesus  goes  with  his  four  disciples  to 
the  home  of  Simon  Peter,  who  was  married,  and  whose 
mother-in-law  lay  sick  in  the  house.  In  the  simple  science 
of  that  day  fevers  were  classified  as  ''little  "  and  "great." 
Luke,  a  physician,  characterized  this  as  a  great  fever  ; 
that  is,  one  of  the  most  serious  and  aggravated  type. 
Simon  appeals  to  the  Master  for  help  ;  it  is  granted ;  and 
the  woman,  without  passing  through  any  period  of  conva- 
lescence, straightway  arises  and  ministers  to  the  household.^ 

Sunset  is  a  sign  for  the  commencement  of  the  greatest 
social  activity  in  Palestine,  and  at  sunset  the  obligation  of 
Sabbath  rest  comes  to  its  close.  As  the  sun  goes  down 
behind  the  western  hills,  a  motley  crowd  begins  to  besiege 
the  house  of  Peter.  Hither  come  the  helpless  paralytic, 
the  unhappy  epileptic,  the  blind  groping  their  way,  the 
lunatic  in  his  half-consciousness  of  disease ;  hither 
invalids  borne  by  others  on  their  mattresses,  or  parents 
bringing  their  children,  or  children  supporting  their  aged 
and  infirm  parents  ;  hither  also  a  great  crowd  drawn  by 
curiosity  to  see  and  hear  this  rabbi  and  physician,  whose 
words  and  works  have  filled  the  city  with  his  fame.  To 
them  all  Christ  ministered.  Nor  was  it  till  night  had 
spread  its  curtains  over  the  whole  scene  that  the  crowd 
dispersed  and  left  Jesus  to  repose.  Sorely  must  he  have 
needed  it,  for  at  every  touch  he  felt  virtue  go  out  of  him. 
Every  struggle  with  disease  or  death,  or  the  greater  evil  of 

^  It  is  not  possible  in  a  paragraph  to  discuss  the  problem  of  demoniacal  pos- 
session. For  reasons  which  I  have  stated  in  my  "  Jesus  of  Nazareth,"  Chapter 
XIII.,  I  believe  not  only  that  there  really  was,  but  that  there  really  still  is,  such 
a  phenomenon. 

'^  In  this  incident  one  may,  without  undue  fancifulness,  see  a  type  of  Christ's 
spiritual  cure :  he  not  only  banishes  the  disease,  but  he  inspires  health  and 
strength  for  newness  of  life. 


"a    day    with    JESUS '*  41 

sin,  cost  him  effort,  and  the  more  effort  because  in  all  dis- 
eases and  death  he  saw  at  once  the  symbol  and  the  conse- 
quence of  sin.  So  apparent  was  this  cost  to  the  Master 
that  his  disciples  looking  on  him  instinctively  applied  to 
him  the  words  of  the  ancient  prophet,  "  Himself  took  our 
infirmities  and  bare  our  sicknesses."  The  nervous  ex- 
haustion of  the  day  was  too  great  to  permit  sleep,  and, 
rising  early  in  the  morning,  he  sought  repose  in  solitude 
and  prayer,  away  from  the  haunts  of  men. 

Such  was  one  day  ©f  Christ's  life.     Such  the  industry, 
the  energy,  the  enthusiasm,  the  self-sacrifice  of  his  service. 


CHAPTER  XI.— ELEMENTS  OF  HOSTILITY  TO 

JESUS 

Mark  ii.,  1-22 


It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  Jesus's  ministry 
was  at  its  commencement  one  of  unhindered  popularity. 
If,  as  I  believe  to  be  the  case,  he  began  his  public  ministry 
with  the  expulsion  of  the  traders  from  the  Temple,  his  life 
was  from  the  very  beginning  one  of  conflict  with  a  bitterly 
hostile  and  powerful  faction.  The  Scripture  recommended 
for  to-day  and  for  next  Sunday  suggests  some  of  the  special 
criticisms  which  this  faction  brought  against  him.  So  far 
as  past  sin  was  concerned,  he  seems  to  have  uniformly 
ignored  the  sacrificial  system  of  the  Jewish  people.  Upon 
their  repentance  he  pronounced  the  penitents  forgiven  with- 
out ever  requiring  them  to  make  any  sin-offering  for  the 
past.  Of  course  he  was  accused  of  blasphemous  assump- 
tion in  thus  claiming  to  forgive  sins  without  any  ceremonial 
and  priestly  atonement  for  them.  He  called  his  disciples 
not  merely  from  the  peasant  class,  not  merely  from  those 
ignorant  of  Jewish  theology  and  tradition,  but  also  from 
the  publicans,  that  is,  the  tax-githerers,  and  they  had  been 
morally  as  well  as  ceremonially  unclean.  He  not  only 
preached  to  the  poorest,  the  lowest,  and  the  most  outcast, 
but  he  accepted  their  invitations  and  sat  down  to  eat  with 
them.  No  wonder  that  he  was  accused  of  ignoring  social 
distinctions,  and  even  of  disregarding  the  moral  law.  He 
simply  and  quietly  ignored  many,  if  not  most,  of  the  cere- 
monial regulations  upon  which  the  Jewish  religious  teachers 
laid  so  much  stress.  He  ate  with  unwashed  hands — that 
is,  with  hands  that  were  ceremonially  unclean.  Neither 
he  nor  his  disciples  paid  any  attention  to  the  fasts  which 
Jewish  tradition  had  prescribed,  and  which  were  regarded 
as  at  once  the  test  and  the  sign  of  piety.  And  he  used 
himself,  and  recommended  to  others,  a  liberty  on  the  Sabbath 
day  which  seemed  to  the  Pharisees  utterly  subversive  of 

42 


ELEMENTS    OF    HOSTILITY    TO    JESUS  •  43 

the  Mosaic  law.  No  wonder  that  they  accused  him  of  set- 
ting that  law  at  defiance.  But  we  must  look  beneath  these 
accusations  to  get  at  the  real  secret  of  the  hostility  to  Jesus 
Christ,  and  in  this  paper  I  propose  to  suggest  some  of  the 
elements  of  that  hostility  which  are  to  be  borne  in  mind 
by  the  student  in  considering  the  criticisms  reported  in  the 
second  chapter  of  Mark. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  Christ  set  himself  against  the 
established  order  in  Church  and  in  State.  The  few  were 
rich,  the  many  poor;  the  few  learned,  the  many  ignorant. 
He  undertook  to  reverse  this  condition — to  make  the 
many  rich,  the  many  wise  ;  and  the  few  who  were  at  the 
top  did  not  like  it  then,  have  not  liked  it  since,  and  prob- 
ably will  not  like  it  to  the  end  of  time.  He  paid  no  defer- 
ence to  wealth,  and  wealth  likes  to  be  deferred  to  ;  none 
to  wisdom,  and  wisdom  demands  deference.  Neither 
wealth  nor  wisdom  seemed  to  him  of  any  value  unless  they 
were  used  for  the  enrichment  and  the  enlightenment  of 
others  :  and  the  doctrine  that  wealth  and  wisdom  are  val- 
uable only  as  means  for  serving  the  poor  and  the  ignorant 
is  always  resented.  In  brief,  Christ  led  the  great  demo- 
cratic movement  which  has  gone  through  history  from 
that  time  to  this,  leveling  all  institutions  that  have  at- 
tempted to  withstand  the  uprising  of  humanity.  He  taught 
that  the  whole  human  race  is  to  be  redeemed  and  made 
worthy  to  be  called  the  children  of  God ;  that  man — not 
the  Jew-man,  nor  the  rich  man,  nor  the  wise  man,  nor  the 
well-bred  man,  but  man  as  man — is  to  be  transformed, 
educated,  enfranchised,  enriched,  until  the  whole  human 
race  shall  be  one  great  brotherhood  ;  and  the  estabHshed 
order  hated  him  for  this  teaching. 

This  established  order  was  intrenched  behind  and  allied 
with  a  superstitious  conception  of  religion  akin  to  idolatry. 
Piety  was  confounded  with  temple-worship  ;  religion  with 
reverence  for  the  priesthood ;  faith  with  belief  in  tradi- 
tional theology.  Christ  did  not,  except  in  defense  of  his 
teaching,  attack  temple-worship,  the  priestly  order,  or  the 
traditional  theology,  for  in  doing  this  there  was  danger 
that  he  would  seem  to  be  attacking  piety,  reverence,  and 
faith.  But  indirectly  he  attacked  this  superstitious  sub- 
stitute for  religion  by  teaching  explicitly  that  practical 
obedience  is  better  than  temple  sacrifice,  that  worship  of 


44  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

the  Father  is  not  confined  to  the  Temple,  but  is  possible 
in  every  place,  and  that,  not  to  reverence  a  priesthood  or 
obey  a  tradition,  but  to  do  righteously  and  to  love  one's 
neighbor,  is  religion.  All  the  conventional  religionism  of 
that  day  re-enforced  the  established  order  in  its  hostility 
to  a  prophet  whom  the  Scribes  doubtless  sincerely  believed 
was  destroying  religion  because  he  was  effectually  destroy- 
ing the  material  symbols  with  which  religion  had  been  so 
long  confounded. 

For  it  is  true  that  Christ  did  undermine  the  religious 
forms  of  his  day.  It  is  impossible  to  teach  men  that  they 
have  direct  access  to  their  heavenly  Father  without  dimin- 
ishing their  reverence  for  a  priest  whom  they  have  regarded 
as  an  essential  mediator ;  impossible  to  teach  them  that 
practical  obedience,  not  ceremonial  observance,  is  the  true 
test  of  piety  without  weakening  the  hold  which  the  hier- 
archy has  upon  them  ;  above  all,  impossible  to  teach  men 
to  think  for  themselves  without  weakening  the  authority  of 
those  who  have  assumed  to  do  their  thinking  for  them.  It 
has  always  been  the  aim,  conscious  or  unconscious,  of  tra- 
ditionalism to  prevent  men  from  thinking  for  themselves 
and  to  require  them  to  accept  ready-made  thought  forged 
for  them  in  some  other  man's  mind.  Christ's  teaching 
was  revolutionary,  not  so  much  because  he  attacked  tradi- 
tionalism directly — though  he  sometimes  did  that — as 
because  he  incited  men  to  think.  He  flung  out  apho- 
risms to  them  which  set  them  thinking ;  taught  them 
in  parables  and  riddles  and  enigmas  that  compelled 
them  to  think.  Whenever  a  prophet  comes  into  the 
world  with  this  as  his  fundamental  message,  that  every 
man  is  by  nature  a  child  of  God,  and  has  direct  access  to 
his  Father,  and,  being  a  child  of  God,  has  an  inalienable 
right  to  study  life  for  himself  and  find  out  the  truth  which 
it  has  for  him,  he  is  counted  a  dangerous  heretic  by  all 
those  who  believe  that  access  to  God  is  the  privilege  of  an 
aristocratic  few,  and  power  to  think  the  power  of  an  aris- 
tocratic few.  Those  who  believe  that  men  are  children 
and  are  to  be  kept  in  leading-strings  always  have  risen 
against  such  teachers  and  always  will. 

To  these  elements  of  hostility  must  be  added  that  race- 
prejudice  which  assailed  Jesus  with  mob  violence  in  his 
first  sermon  at  Nazareth.     The  two  bitterest  prejudices  of 


ELEMENTS    OF    HOSTILITY    TO    JESUS  45 

humanity  are  those  of  race  and  those  of  religion,  it 
would  not  require  more  courage  to  tell  a  mob  of  Anarchists 
in  their  hall  at  Chicago  that  men  of  wealth  were  of  more 
worth  than  themselves,  not  more  courage  to  commend  the 
virtues  of  Chinamen  to  an  audience  of  sand-lotters  in  San 
Francisco,  not  more  courage  to  praise  the  virtues  of  the 
African  to  an  audience  of  Southern  fire-eaters,  than  it 
required  for  Jesus  Christ  to  commend  the  pagan  centurion 
or  the  half-pagan  Samaritan  to  an  audience  of  Jews.  All 
that  which  men  often  mistake  for  zeal  and  for  patriotism 
rose  in  wrath  at  this  challenge  to  Jewish  narrowness  and 
bigotry. 

Race-pride,  theological  prejudice,  superstitious  reverence, 
organized  selfishness — these  four  forces  united  then,  and 
have  co-operated  ever  since,  to  withstand  the  work  of 
Christ  in  the  world.  For  that  work  cannot  be  carried  to 
its  completion,  and  the  whole  of  humanity  united  in  one 
brotherhood  and  lifted  up  into  one  fellowship  with  the 
Father,  but  that  pride  will  be  humiliated,  prejudices 
shamed,  superstitious  reverence  shocked,  and  organized 
selfishness  disappointed  and  defeated.  To  follow  Christ 
is  to  enlist  in  the  long  campaign  against  these  four  ene- 
mies of  human  progress. 


CHAPTER   XII.— THE   SABBATH    QUESTION 

John,  chapter  v.;  Mark  ii.,  23-26;  iii.,  1-6 


The  hostility  to  Jesus  Christ  centered  chiefly  upon  two 
points — his  claims  concerning  himself,  and  his  practice  and 
teaching  respecting  the  Sabbath.  It  was  not  until  a  later 
epoch  in  his  ministry  that  his  claims  respectirg  himself 
were  at  all  understood  by  the  priesthood,  or  even  by  the 
common  people.  It  was,  therefore,  his  practice  and  teach- 
ing respecting  the  Sabbath  which  at  this  period  of  his 
ministry  was  made  the  especial  occasion,  though,  as  I 
attempted  to  show  in  the  last  chapter,  not  the  real  cause, 
of  the  bitterest  hostility  to  him. 

The  origin  of  the  observance  of  one  day  in  seven  as  a 
day  of  sacred  rest  is  lost  in  the  mists  of  antiquity.  It  cer- 
tainly dates,  however,  from  the  earliest  period  of  Jewish 
history,  and  the  law  for  its  observance  was  regarded  as  so 
fundamental  to  the  Jewish  commonwealth  as  to  be  incor- 
porated in  the  Ten  Commandments,  which  constitute  the 
constitution  of  the  Hebrew  State.  This  law  was,  indeed, 
something  quite  different  from  that  which  Puritanism  has 
attempted  to  make  of  it.  The  Fourth  Commandment  does 
not  require,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  any  religious  obser- 
vance upon  the  seventh  day  of  the  week.  It  does  not  call  for 
any  worship,  either  public  or  private.  It  is  wholly  taken 
up  with  prohibiting  toil.  Like  most  of  God's  laws,  this 
statute  was  a  gift.  For  this  commandment  prohibiting 
all  secular  toil  in  one  day  out  of  the  seven  came  to  a  nation 
just  emerging  from  slavery  and  dwarfed  and  degraded  by 
servile  drudgery.  It  is  true  that  this  prohibition  was 
enforced  by  very  severe  penalties  ;  but  it  is  also  true  that, 
the  toil  being  prohibited,  the  individual  was  left  entirely 
free  to  spend  his  leisure  time  in  whatever  way  he  chose. 
Personally,  I  believe  that  the  Fourth  Commandment  is  in 
this  respect  a  wise  model  for  modern  legislation  to  follow. 
The  laborer  has  a  right  to  be  protected  in  his  enjoyment  of 

46 


THE    SABBATH    QUESTION  47 

one  day's  rest.  That  protection  being  afforded  to  him,  he 
has  a  right,  so  far  as  his  fellow-citizens  are  concerned,  to 
do  whatever  he  likes  with  that  one  day  of  rest,  provided 
his  employment  of  it  does  not  violate  the  rights  of  his 
fellow-laborers. 

But  Judaism,  like  modern  Puritanism,  was  not  content 
with  the  Mosaic  statute.  The  day,  originally  observed  as 
a  day  of  gladness  in  the  Temple  and  of  festal  scenes  at 
home,^  was  made  by  Pharisaic  regulations  a  day  burden- 
some and  well-nigh  intolerable.  It  ceased  to  be  a  day  of 
freedom  and  became  one  of  bondage.  The  rules  for  its 
observance,  as  they  are  to  be  gathered  from  the  Talmud, 
seem  to  us  ludicrous.  They  forbade  walking  upon  the 
grass  with  heavy  shoes  on  the  Sabbath,  because  that 
would  be  a  kind  of  threshing  ;  catching  a  flea,  because  that 
would  be  a  kind  of  hunting  ;  eating  a  newly  laid  egg  on 
the  first  day  of  the  week,  because,  presumptively,  it  had 
been  prepared  by  the  hen  in  the  course  of  nature  on  the 
seventh  day.  A  little  less  irrational,  but  hardly  less  bur- 
densome, were  some  of  the  traditional  regulations  implied 
in  the  Gospel  narratives,  such  as  prohibiting  the  sick  from 
coming  to  a  physician  on  the  Sabbath ;  prohibiting  a  man 
from  carrying  the  cushion  or  mattress  on  which  he 
reclined;  prohibiting  men,  if  walking  through  a  grain-field, 
from  plucking  the  ears  of  grain  and  eating  them  as  they 
walked — as  if,  in  our  day,  a  boy  should  be  prohibited  from 
picking  an  apple  from  the  ground  in  an  orchard  and  eat- 
ing it  on  the  Sabbath.  Nevertheless,  the  Sabbath  was 
with  the  Jew,  as  it  is  with  the  Roman  Catholic,  a  day  of 
festivity.  From  seasons  of  fasting  the  Sabbath  was  always 
exempted.  The  best  dinner  of  the  week  in  the  pious 
Jew's  house  was  served  on  the  Sabbath.  "  Meet  the  Sab- 
bath with  a  lively  hunger ;  let  thy  table  be  covered  with 
fish,  flesh,  and  generous  wine,"  is  one  of  the  Talmudic 
aphorisms. 

Against  the  social  and  festive  aspects  of  this  day  Christ 
never  uttered  a  protest.  It  is  evident  from  the  account  in 
the  fourteenth  chapter  of  Luke  that  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
attend  on  the  Sabbath  a  dinner-party  of  considerable  social 
pretension.^     At  a  time  when  the  issue  is  so  sharply  drawn 

^  See  Psalms  xcii.,  cxxii.;  Lev.  xxiii.,  2, 3  :  Psalm  xlii.,  4 ;  Neh.  viii.,  9-13. 
2  See  Luke  xiv.,  especially  verses  i,  7,  and  12. 


48  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

between  the  Puritan  Sabbath — that  is,  a  Sabbath  fenced 
round  with  legal  prohibitions — and  what  is  termed  the 
Continental  Sabbath,  which,  as  it  reappears  on  our  shore 
Americanized,  is  no  Sabbath  at  all,  it  is  difficult  to  speak 
frankly  and  freely  without  being  subject  to  misunder- 
standing. Notwithstanding  this  hazard,  I  must  frankly 
say  that  I  can  see  no  ground,  either  in  the  practice  or  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  Christ  or  in  the  subsequent  teaching  of 
the  Apostles,  for  the  notion  that  there  is  anything  incon- 
sistent with  the  Christian  use  of  the  Christian's  rest-day 
in  such  social  fellowship  and  enjoyment  as  are  not  incon- 
sistent with  an  advantageous  use  of  its  spiritual  opportu 
nities  and  do  not  make  the  day  one  of  burdensome  toil 
and  labor  to  others.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  indi- 
cation that  Jesus  engaged  in  secular  work  on  the  Sabbath 
or  encouraged  his  disciples  so  to  do.  This  accusation 
would  certainly  have  been  brought  against  them  if  there 
had  been  any  ground  whatever  for  it.  But  not  even  Jew- 
ish tradition  contains  any  such  accusation.  On  the  con- 
trary, Jesus  habitually  attended  the  synagogue  services  on 
the  Sabbath  with  his  disciples,  and  they  apparently  con- 
tinued so  to  do  after  his  death.  And  although  the  day 
was  changed,  a  weekly  Sabbath,  imported  from  Judaism 
into  Christianity,  became  as  characteristic  of  the  primitive 
Christian  Church  as  it  had  been  of  the  precedent  Jewish 
Church. 

But  Christ  did  repel,  with  some  indignation,  the  notion 
that  this  day,  sacred  to  rest,  and  therefore  to  liberty,  was 
to  be  kept  sacred  by  minute,  harassing,  and  burdensome 
regulations.  He  not  only  healed  the  sick  on  this  day,  but 
he  seems  even  to  have  taken  pains  to  do  this  healing  in 
such  a  way  as  to  set  Jewish  tradition  at  defiance.  For 
he  healed  the  paralytic,  not  only  on  the  Sabbath,  but  in 
the  synagogue  and  in  connection  with  a  religious  service  ; 
and  he  treated  the  Pharisaic  criticism  of  this  act  almost 
with  contempt.  The  sick  man  at  the  pool  of  Bethesda  he 
not  only  healed,  but  he  bade  him  bear  his  mattress  on  his 
shoulders,  in  direct  violation  of  the  letter,  though  not  of 
the  spirit,  of  a  traditional  command,  embodied  in  Old  Tes- 
tament history,  against  all  bearing  of  burdens  on  that 
day.-^     Called  to  account  by  the   Pharisees,  Jesus  Christ 

^  Neh.  xiii.,  19;  Jer.  xvii.,  21,  22,  27. 


THE    SABBATH    QUESTION  49 

replied  that  God's  rest  was  the  type  which  man  was  to 
follow  in  his  resting.  Religion  never  requires  love  to 
cease  its  activities.  "  My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I 
work,"  is  not  an  exceptional  justification  for  the  only 
begotten  Son  of  God,  but  a  principle  by  which  every  Son 
of  God  may  determine  what  work  is  legitimate  and  what 
illegitimate  on  the  world's  rest-day.  When  his  disciples 
were  chided  for  plucking  the  ears  of  grain  and  eating  them 
as  they  walked  through  the  grain-field,  Christ  announced 
another  principle  equally  comprehensive.  "The  Sabbath," 
he  said,  ''  was  made  for  man,  and  not  man  for  the  Sab- 
bath ;  therefore  the  Son  of  man  is  lord  also  of  the  Sab- 
bath." This  also  is  not  to  be  interpreted  merely  as  a 
declaration  that  the  Messiah  has  a  right  to  modify  the 
Mosaic  law.  That  would  be  a  7ion  sequitur.  The  decla- 
ration is  that,  since  the  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and 
is  his  instrument,  he  is  at  liberty  to  use  it  with  freedom, 
only  always  keeping  in  mind  the  ends  for  which  this  gift 
has  been  bestowed  upon  him. 

These  teachings  do  not  merely  furnish  a  solvent  for 
many  religious  perplexities ;  they  involve  a  principle  of 
wider  application.  Christ  comes,  not  like  frost,  to  freeze 
men  up,  but  like  sunshine,  to  set  them  free.  The  three 
most  sacred  ceremonials  of  the  Jewish  religion  are  circum- 
cision, sacrifices,  and  the  Sabbath  law.  Christ  abolished 
circumcision  ;  set  men  free  from  the  law  of  sacrifices  ;  and 
the  Sabbath,  which  man  had  made  a  day  of  bondage, 
Christ  converted  into  a  day  of  liberty. 


CHAPTER  XIII.— THE  SEED  OF  THE  CHURCH  ^ 

Mark  iii.,  6-19 


Jesus  Christ  and  his  Glad-Tidings  were  received  with 
great  popular  enthusiasm.  The  people  were  eager  to  hear 
this  new  message  of  hope.  One  man  could  not  unaided 
carry  it  throughout  the  Holy  Land.  Had  Jesus  Christ 
possessed  no  foresight,  had  no  prophetic  vision  suggested 
to  him  the  necessity  of  providing  some  organization  which 
should  carry  on  his  work  and  repeat  his  message  after  he 
was  gone,  had  he  never  intended  to  make  it  a  world-wide 
message,  but  only  a  provincial  one,  still  it  would  have  been 
necessary  to  secure  some  co-laborers.  From  the  disciples 
who  accompanied  him  in  his  ministry  he  selected  twelve 
to  be  especially  near  to  him,  to  receive  his  inspiration  and 
his  special  instructions,  to  preach  his  Gospel  in  the  vil- 
lages while  he  preached  it  in  the  larger  cities,  and  to  carry 
on  this  ministry  in  a  wider  sphere  after  his  death  and 
resurrection.  This  purpose  of  his  was  not  apparent  at 
first,  but  if  we  take  the  whole  history  of  his  relation  to  the 
Twelve,  from  his  first  calling  of  them  to  his  last  missionary 
commission  before  his  ascension,  it  is  clear  that  his  pur- 
pose included  nothing  less  than  this.  Concerning  the 
commission  which  he  gave  to  these  disciples  while  he  was 
still  with  them,  and  the  later  commission  when  he  was 
about  to  leave  them,  I  shall  have  something  to  say  here- 
after. In  this  paper  I  confine  myself  to  some  observations 
respecting  the  principles  upon  which  Jesus  apparently 
selected  the  Twelve,  and  their  personal  character. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  it  is  difficult  to  ascertain  with 
any  accuracy,  from  the  accounts  which  have  come  down  to 
us,  the  principles  upon  which  Christ's  selection  of  the 
Twelve  was  made.     We  know  that  some  volunteers  offered 

1  For  fuller  treatment  of  this  theme  the  student  is  referred  to  Chapter  XVI.  in 
my  "Jesus  of  Nazareth,"  and  to  my  "Commentary  on  Matthew,"  Chapter  X., 
•'Supplemental  note  on  the  Twelve  Apostles,  their  lives  and  characters." 

50 


THE    SEED    OF    THE    CHURCH  ^I 

to  join  this  band  and  were  refused,  and  in  some  instances 
the  ground  of  the  refusal  is  sufficiently  plain. ^  We  know 
also  from  Christ's  own  words^  that  the  Twelve  were  not 
those  who  accidentally  attached  themselves  to  Jesus  ;  they 
were  carefully  selected  by  him  from  a  far  greater  number 
of  adherents.  But,  with  perhaps  three  exceptions,  there 
does  not  appear  in  their  history  anything  remarkable 
about  these  men  except  their  attachment  to  Jesus.  From 
his  Gospel  we  judge  that  Matthew  possessed  a  systematic 
and  orderly  mind,  for  he  more  than  any  other  Evangelist 
has  arranged  the  sayings  of  Jesus  in  a  somewhat  systematic 
manner  ;  Peter  proved  to  be  an  eloquent  evangelist ;  John 
possessed  remarkable  spiritual  insight,  and  became  in  his 
later  years  a  prominent  leader  in  the  Church.  But,  with 
these  exceptions,  no  one  of  the  Twelve  occupied  any  very 
important  position  in  the  Church  after  Christ's  death  ;  for 
James,  the  brother  of  Christ,  who  became  a  leader  in  Jeru- 
salem, was  not  one  of  the  Twelve,  nor  was  Paul,  who  -became 
the  great  missionary  to  the  heathen.  With  the  exception 
of  Judas  Iscariot,  the  Twelve  were  Galileans,  selected  from 
the  peasant  population  of  Palestine  ;  in  the  main,  simple- 
minded  men,  without  social  advantage,  wealth,  culture, 
remarkable  insight,  or  heroic  temper.  Excepting  John, 
there  does  not  seem  to  have  been  among  them  a  single 
man  who  could  for  a  moment  rank  with  Moses  or  David 
or  Isaiah,  or,  indeed,  with  any  one  of  the  great  Hebrew 
prophets. 

Yet  we  must  remember  that  the  story  of  their  lives  has 
not  been  preserved  for  us  ;  for  the  Gospels  are  the  narra- 
tive of  the  life  of  Christ,  and  only  incidentally  of  the  lives 
of  his  followers,  and  the  Book  of  Acts  is  less  the  his- 
tory of  individuals  than  the  history  of  the  Church  in  its 
formative  period.  Moreover,  we  are  likely  to  be  misled 
by  the  common  statement  that  they  were  illiterate  men. 
This  means  little  more  than  that  they  were  all  laymen, 
untrained  in  the  rabbinical  literature  of  their  time.  This 
illiterateness  was  their  best  preparation  to  receive  without 
prejudice  that  new  spiri  ual  life  which  Jesus  Christ  had 
come  to  impart.  In  a  similar  manner,  the  founders  of  the 
Reformation  were  not  scholastics,  nor  were  ihe  leaders  in 
the  great  Methodist  movement  taken  from  the  theological 

1  Luke  ix.,  57-62 ;  Mark  v„  18,  19.  ^  John  xv.,  16. 


52  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

and  ecclesiastical  schools  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Illit- 
erate though  they  were,  they  were  not  without  that  aspi- 
ration which  is  the  best  preparation  for  a  true  prophetic 
work.  Four  of  them  Jesus  found  at  the  Jordan,  attracted 
by  the  preaching  of  John  the  Baptist.  A  fifth  was  evi- 
dently looking  with  them  for  the  coming  of  the  Messiah.^ 
Two  of  them  certainly,  Philip  and  Peter,  were  familiar 
with  the  Greek  language.  The  latter  was  a  man  of  con- 
siderable means,  lived  in  his  own  house,  and  thought  he 
had  given  up  a  good  deal  to  follow  Christ.  The  father  of 
James  and  John  was  able  to  keep  hired  servants,  and  to 
carry  on  his  fishing  operations  on  a  somewhat  extensive 
scale ;  and  John  had  such  relations  with  the  High  Priest 
as  gave  him,  at  a  critical  period  in  Christ's  history,  easy 
access  to  the  palace.^ 

But  if  the  disciples  had  open  and  unprejudiced  minds, 
they  do  not  appear  to  have  possessed  remarkable  moral  or 
spiritual  genius.  Peter  and  John  do  not  show  any  indica- 
tions of  greatness  of  character  prior  to  Christ's  influence 
upon  them.  John,  sharing  with  the  other  disciples  their 
expectations  of  a  temporal  kingdom,  ambitiously  seeks  a 
first  place  in  it ;  passionate  by  nature,  he  would  destroy  by 
fire  the  Samaritan  village  which  refuses  its  hospitality  to 
his  Lord;  and,  when  he  joins  the  band,  possesses,  with  his 
brother  James,  a  nature  which  earns  for  them  from  Christ 
the  sobriquet  of  Sons  of  Thunder.^  If  John  acquires  his 
gentleness  and  tenderness  from  his  intercourse  with  Jesus, 
Simon  Peter  acquires  his  courage  from  the  same  source. 
The  incidents  recorded  by  the  Gospel  in  his  career  indicate 
a  man  by  nature  ardent,  impulsive,  unstable,  untrustworthy. 
No  one  of  the  disciples  could  more  truthfully  have  said 
than  he,  "  By  the  grace  of  God  I  am  what  I  am."  * 

We  are,  perhaps,  liable  to  do  these  disciples  some  injus- 
tice by  contrasting  them  not  only  with  their  Master,  but 
with  our  naturally  clearer  understanding  of  his  mission  and 
his  meaning  ;  nevertheless  it  is  certain  that  they  were  often 
obtuse  and  unreceptive,  so  much  so  at  times  as  to  draw  upon 

1  If,  as  is  generally  supposed,  Nathanael  is  to  be  identified  with  Bartholomew. 

2  See  John  i.,  36-49;  xii.,  20;  Acts  viii.,  30  ;  x.,  24,  et  al.  ;  Luke  iv.,  38;   Matt, 
xix.,  27;  Mark  i.,  20;  Johnxviii.,  16. 

3  Matt.  XX.,  20-24 ;  Mark  ix.,  38 ;  Luke  ix.,  54 ;  Mark  iii.,  17. 

*  Matt,  xiv.,  28-30;  John  xiii.,  6-9;  John  xviii.,  10,  with  Matt,  xxvi.,  56; 
John  xviii.,  15,  17,  25-27;  Acts  x.,  47,  48 ;  Gal.  ii.,  11-13. 


THE    SEED    OF    THE    CHURCH  53 

them  his  rebuke.  Their  prosaic  natures  stumbled  over  his 
poetical  sayings.  When  he  cautions  them  against  the 
leaven  of  the  Pharisees,  they  imagine  that  he  is  afraid  of 
being  poisoned  ;  when  he  warns  them  of  approaching  spir- 
itual conflict,  they  innocently  produce  two  swords  to  show 
that  they  are  armed ;  when  he  tries  their  faith  by  asking 
what  shall  be  done  to  feed  the  five  thousand,  Andrew 
can  think  of  nothing  but  the  five  loaves  and  two  small 
fishes  at  hand ;  when  he  promises  them  a  spiritual  mani- 
festation such  as  the  unspiritual  cannot  receive,  Thaddeus 
stumbles  over  the  declaration  with  the  question,  "  How  wilt 
thou  manifest  thyself  to  us,  and  not  unto  the  world  ?'• 
when  he  tells  them  that  he  is  going  to  the  Father,  Thomar/ 
replies,  "  We  know  not  whither  thou  goest ;  and  how  can 
we  know  the  way  ?"  These  are  not  the  utterances  of  quick- 
minded,  spiritual,  receptive  souls.  Spiritually  as  well  as 
intellectually,  they  belong  to  the  "plain  people." 

They  were  not  even  selected  from  the  most  moral  of  the 
community.  Prominent  among  them  was  a  despised  tax- 
gatherer  ;  less  prominent,  another  whose  previous  identi- 
fication with  some  one  of  the  numerous  turbulent  factions 
which  kept  Palestine  in  a  perpetual  ferment  earned  for 
him  the  title  of  the  Zealot.  A  third,  Simon  Peter,  pos- 
sessed the  Oriental  vices  of  profanity  and  falsehood,  which, 
despite  his  long  companionship  with  Jesus,  revived,  after 
he  thought  they  were  conquered,  to  overwhelm  him  with 
shame  and  confusion  in  the  crisis-hour  of  his  life.  In 
short,  in  the  selection  of  his  apostles,  as  in  the  selection 
of  the  larger  body  of  disciples  from  which  they  were  chosen, 
Jesus  seems  to  have  acted  upon  the  principle  announced 
by  himself,  "  I  am  not  come  to  call  the  righteous,  but 
sinners  to  repentance."  That  even  his  powerful  influ- 
ence was  not  always  suflicient  to  give  victory  to  the  better 
nature  is  made  evident  by  the  tragic  story  of  Judas  Is- 
cariot.-^ 

The  mission  which  he  gave  to  these  disciples  will  be 
considered  hereafter.  It  must  suffice  here  simply  to  note 
the  fact  that  in  calling  them  to  be  his  immediate  disciples, 
the  witnesses  of  his  life,  death,  and  resurrection,  and  the 
preachers  of  his  Gospel  both  during  his  life  and  after  his 
death,  there  is  nothing  in  the  Gospel  account  to  indicate 


■^ — , —  — j_, ,^  — ^^j^ 

^  Matt.  X.,  4  ;  Luke  vi.,  15  ;  Markxiv.,  66-71. 


54  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

that  he  conferred  upon  them  any  especial  ecclesiastical 
authority.-^  He  established  no  hierarchy,  he  gave  them  no 
authority  over  one  another,  and  none  over  the  Church  ; 
he  prescribed  for  them  neither  ritual,  creed,  nor  order  of 
service;  and  he  did  not  authorize  them,  certainly  not  in 
any  utterance  recorded  in  the  Gospels,  to  appoint  succes- 
sors. Paul,  who  was  not  one  of  the  twelve,  and  did  not 
receive  ordination  from  the  twelve,  claimed  to  be  equally 
with  them  an  Apostle,  because  equally  with  them,  though 
in  a  different  way,  a  witness  to  the  resurrection  of  the 
Master. 

^There  was,  however,  one  absolute  condition  of  member- 
ship in  this  little  band,  and  one  mission  which  it  was  to 
discharge.  This  condition  was  absolute  faith  in  and  loy- 
alty to  their  Master ;  this  mission  was  to  bear  testimony 
to  him.  Whatever  he  said  they  were  to  receive  ;  whatever 
he  commanded  they  were  to  obey.  When  the  rich  young 
ruler  desired  to  join  them,  it  was  made  a  condition  that 
he  should  reduce  himself  to  their  condition  of  poverty. 
When  Peter  protesljed  that  Christ  should  not  w^ash  his 
feet,  Christ  refused  any  explanation  of  his  action,  simply 
replying  :  "  If  I  wash  thee  not,  XYidu  hast  no  part  with  me." 
When  James  and  John  asked  for  office,  he  refused  to  make 
any  promise  whatever,  save  the  promise  of  sharing  with 
him  in  service  and  sacrifice.  In  this  spirit  of  loyalty  they 
were  to  be  his  heralds.  They  were  sent,  not  to  preach  a 
new  standard  of  moralit}^,  nor  to  reaffirm  an  old  standard, 
but  to  preach  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand. 
They  were  the  forerunners  of  a  king,  the  prophets  of  a 
Messiah,  witnesses  to  the  Christ. 

1  Some  of  my  readers  will  think  this  statement  inconsistent  with  such  declara- 
tions as  Matt,  xvi.,  i8,  ig  ;  xviii.,  i8,  and  John  xx.,  22,  23.  But,  in  my  judgment, 
whatever  authority  is  conferred  by  these  utterances  is  conferred  upon  all  the 
disciples  of  Christ.  For  the  reasons  for  this  opinion  I  must  refer  the  student  to 
my  Commentaries. 


CHAPTER    XIV.— THE    SERMON    ON    THE 
MOUNT 1 

Matthew  v.,  vi.,  and  vii. ;  Luke  vi.,  20-49 


The  notion  that  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is  a  collection 
of  logia  of  Jesus  Christ,  uttered  at  different  times  and  on 
different  occasions  and  brought  together  by  Matthew, 
seems  to  me  wholly  incongruous  wi.h  the  structure  of  the 
discourse  itself.  This  sermon  is  an  ordination  sermon, 
delivered  after  the  selection  of  the  Twelve  to  be  the  chosen 
companions  of  the  Master,  and  his  prophets  and  heralds. 
It  is  delivered  primarily  to  the  Twelve,  secondarily  to  a 
great  congregation  which  has  flocked  up  the  hillside  and 
surrounds  the  speaker  and  this  nucleus  of  his  future  Church. 
It  is  the  most  complete  and  comprehensive  statement 
which  Christ  has  afforded  of  the  principles  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  which  he  had  come  to  establish  upon  the  earth. 

He  begins  this  sermon  with  a  note  of  blessing.  Four- 
teen hundred  years  or  more  before,  Moses  had  gone  up 
into  another  mount  to  take  the  law  from  God — a  mount 
sterile  but  grand,  around  whose  top  the  lightning  was 
playing,  around  which  the  music  of  the  thunder  was  heard, 
while  all  was  cloud-enfolded.  Now,  on  a  grassy  slope,  in 
the  broad  sunlight  that  streamed  from  the  heavens  above, 
the  only  music  the  music  of  the  singing  birds  that  flew 
through  the  air,  and  to  which  he  pointed  as  an  illustration 
of  his  Father's  care,  the  new  laws  of  the  new  kingdom  were 
imparted.  The  first  word  of  this  discourse  was  like  the 
sunlight  and  like  the  singing  of  the  birds — a  word  of  bene- 
diction. The  first  word  of  that  discourse  was  a  word  of 
the  awful  grandeur  of  Jehovah. 

Christ  begins  his  discourse,  then,  by  declaring  the  con- 
dition of  happiness ;  and  that  condition  is  all  bound  up, 
according  to  Christ,  in   one   word.     We  chiefly  think  they 

1  This  lesson-paper  is  a  reprint  of  one  of  a  series  of  sermons  on  the  Life  of 
Christ  given  in  Plymouth  Church  in  1888  and  18S9,  and  published  in  the  "  Chris- 
tian World  Pulpit,"  and  now  revised  for  this  volume. 

55 


56  ,  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

are  blessed  that  have.  Christ  says  they  are  blessed  that 
are.  Not  condition,  acquisition,  situation,  give  happiness, 
but  character.  And  every  phase  of  character  brings  its 
own  peculiar  blessing  with  it.  Blessed  are  the  poor  in 
spirit :  easy  it  is  for  them  to  yield  allegiance  to  the  God 
whose  kingdom  I  have  come  to  proclaim — easy  for  them 
to  enter  through  the  door  of  repentance,  which  is  hard  for 
the  high-spirited.  Blessed  are  the  meek :  not  the  man 
who  grasps,  not  the  man  who  is  determined  to  get  all  he 
can  .and  keep  all  he  gets,  not  the  man  who  is  strenuous 
for  his  rights,  but  the  man  of  meek  and  bearable  disposi- 
tion, is  the  man  who  really  enjoys  what  this  life  has  to 
furnish  men.  Blessed  are  the  peacemakers  :  not  the  war- 
riors of  wrath  whom  the  world  exalts,  not  the  men  who 
have  flung  themselves  into  battle  and  fought  for  ambition 
'or  even  for  patriotism,  but  the  men  who,  by  conscious 
endeavor  or  the  unconscious  influence  of  their  character, 
are  cementing  together  men  in  one  great  brotherhood  of 
love — they  are  blessed,  they  are  to  be  called  the  children 
of  God.  Blessed,  not  the  great  scholars  and  theologians 
who  have  studied  the  tomes  and  battled  in  the  controver- 
sies of  the  centuries  that  they  may  find  out  who  and  what 
is  God  and  tell  us,  but  the  pure  in  heart,  in  whose  souls 
there  is  no  lustful  thought,  whose  translucent  natures  lie 
before  God  as  the  placid  lake  before  the  stars  in  the 
heavens,  and  reflect  God  in  the  quietude  and  placidity  of 
their  nature. 

Blessed  is  character — this  is  Christ's  first  note.  How 
shall  this  character  be  obtained .''  The  most  common 
method  of  making  character  has  been  to  square  it  to  cer- 
tain laws  and  regulations  previously  framed.  This  was 
Pharisaism  in  the  first  century,  Legalism  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  Puritanism  in  these  later  days.  To  lay  down  a  law 
of  conduct,  and  then  try  to  adjust  character  and  life  to 
that  law  of  conduct — this  is  the  conception  of  righteous- 
ness which  to-day  in  America,  after  eighteen  centuries  of 
Christ's  teaching,  a  great  many  men  entertain.  What  is 
the  law  of  truth?  "I  will  go  just  so  far  as  that  law 
requires  me,  and  no  further."  What  is  unselfishness  ?  "  I 
will  hold  my  hand  from  whatever  form  of  selfishness  law — 
moral  law,  God's  law — prohibits,  but  no  further."  "  No  !" 
says    Christ;    'unless    your    righteousness    exceeds    the 


THE    SERiMON    ON    THE    MOUNT 


57 


righteousness  attained  by  any  such  method  as  this,  you 
cannot  even  come  into  the  kingdom  of  God."  And  he 
illustrates  this  proposition  by  five  illustrations.  What  is 
the  law  for  the  regulation  of  passion — Thou  shalt  not  kill  ? 
thou  shalt  not  use  thine  arm  to  do  a  wrong  to  thy  neigh- 
bor's life  or  his  person  ?  ''  No  !"  says  Christ.  "  He  that 
is  angry  with  his  brother  without  a  cause  is  a  murderer. 
Character  that  does  not  go  deep  enough  to  control  the 
ebullient  passion  within  is  no  character  that  carries  blessed- 
ness with  it."  "You  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said, 
Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery ;  but  I  tell  you  that  the 
man  who  simply  holds  his  passion  so  far  in  check  has  not 
the  blessedness  I  speak  of.  The  evil  thought  nesting  in 
the  imagination  carries  not  only  stain  but  wretchedness 
with  it."  "  You  have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  Thou 
shalt  not  forswear  thyself;  thou  shalt  not  take  the  name 
of  the  Lord  thy  God  in  vain  ;  thou  shalt  not  overstep  this 
reasonable  rule  of  reverence ;  but  I  say  unto  you  more  than 
that :  Thou  shalt  not  swear  by  heaven,  nor  by  earth,  nor 
by  thy  head ;  for  whatsoever  hath  in  it  more  than  simply 
yea  and  nay,  simplest  profession  of  simplest  affirmation  or 
denial,  comes  of  evil — comes,  that  is,  of  the  secret  sense  of 
personal  distrust."  "  You  have  heard  what  is  the  law  that 
is  to  regulate  us  in  the  punishment  of  offenders.  You 
have  heard  that  it  hath  been  said,  An  eye  for  an  eye  and 
a  tooth  for  a  tooth."  Men  have  in  our  time  reviled  this 
as  a  cruel  code.  No ;  it  was  a  merciful  one  ;  for  it  restrains 
men  from  following  their  natural  impulse,  which  is  always 
to  make  vengeance  exceed  the  wrong  to  be  revenged. 
One  man  calls  his  neighbor  a  liar ;  in  return  the  neighbor 
strikes  a  blow ;  thereupon  the  other  neighbor  strikes  a 
heavier  blow,  and  each  blow  leads  to  a  heavier  blow  than 
the  other.  The  law  of  Moses  restrained  men  from  such 
vengeance.  But  Christ  says,  "  This  law  of  restraint.  An 
eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,  this  holding  your- 
self back  from  an  even-handed  punishment  of  wrong-doing, 
is  not  enough.  I  tell  you  to  cure  evil  by  love."  You  can- 
not make  yourself  right  by  trying  to  square  your  conduct 
or  your  life  to  an  outer  rule  or  regulation.  If  you  try  to 
do  it,  you  will  not  be  happy.  Let  any  man  with  passion  in 
him  try  to  hold  his  hand  back  from  wrath,  or  with  lustful 
imagination  in  him  try  to  live  a  pure  life,  or  with   hate  in 


58  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

his  soul  try  to  square  his  life  to  the  golden  rule  of  con- 
duct— he  will  not  be  happy.  The  blessedness  that  Christ 
promises  is  the  blessedness  of  a  soul  filled  with  that  divine 
impulse  of  love  which  was  in  Christ  himself. 

There  is  one  motive  that  perhaps  more  than  any  other 
leads  us  to  attempt  righteousness.  It  is  the  approbation 
of  our  fellow-men.  And  Christ  says  (this  as  the  third 
point  in  his  sermon)  :  "  It  is  not  enough  that  you  do  that 
which  other  men  think  is  right,  and  because  other  men 
think  it  to  be  right.  You  are  generous.  Is  it  because 
you  are  really  liberal  of  heart,  or  because  men  will  see 
what  you  give  ?  You  pray.  Is  it  because  you  really 
desire  to  commune  with  your  Father,  or  do  you  desire  not 
to  be  thought  undevout  ?  You  fast.  Is  it  because  your 
soul  is  really  so  burdened  with  sin  that  you  cannot  eat,  or 
do  you  wish  to  be  counted  as  religious .'"'  It  is  not  wrong 
to  subscribe  that  men  may  honor  you ;  but  when  you  have 
paid  your  five  cents,  or  your  fifty  dollars,  and  got  the 
approving  glance  of  your  fellow-men,  you  have  paid  for  the 
goods,  and  the  goods  have  been  delivered  to  you  :  it  is  a 
commercial  transaction — that  is  all.  There  is  only  one 
way  of  happy,  blessed  living.  It  is  the  way  of  a  man 
whose  whole  soul  is  consecrated  to  the  service  of  God  in 
service  of  his  fellow-men. 

So  Christ  says,  in  the  fourth  place :  "  Be  not  double- 
minded  " — for  this  is  the  meaning  of  the  word  rendered 
"Be  not  careful."  Do  not  go  into  life  thinking,  "I  shall 
spend  so  much  time  for  food,  raiment,  and  earthly  forces, 
and  so  much  for  God  and  the  service  of  my  fellow-men." 
Give  yourself  to  the  life  of  love,  in  the  store,  in  the  kitchen, 
in  the  office,  in  the  street,  wherever  you  are.  Count  life 
a  place  in  which  you  are  to  show  how  much  you  can  im- 
part, not  how  much  you  can  get.  Bestow,  and  even  as 
you  give  men  will  give  back  to  you — freely,  liberally, 
largely,  according  to  the  measure  wherewith  you  give  ; 
and  your  heavenly  Father  will  provide  for  all  that  you 
have  need  of.  "  Shall  I  be  rich  ?"  Perhaps  not.  Have 
you  need  of  riches  }  "  Shall  I  live  in  a  brownstone  front .?" 
Perhaps  not.  Do  you  need  to  live  in  a  brownstone  front  ? 
"  Shall  I  be  more  famous  than  my  neighbor  ?"  Perhaps 
not.  Do  you  need  to  be  more  famous  than  your  neighbor  ? 
But  he  who  consecrates  his  life  to  the  service  of  humanity 


THE    SERMON    ON    THE    MOUNT 


59 


receives  back  from  the  open  hand  of  man,  because  back 
from  the  open  hand  of  God,  all  that  he  needs  for  this 
life,  and  the  blessedness  that  comes  through  love.  Love 
giving  generously  receives  in  return  joyfully. 

This  is  well,  says  some  one,  for  those  who  are  made  with 
this  temperament,  but  how  for  me  ?  I  have  not  a  peace- 
ful temperament.  How  shall  I  make  myself  a  peacemaker  ? 
I  have  not  the  pure  temperament.  How  shall  I  control 
the  lustful  imagination  ?  I  have  not  the  equable  tempera- 
ment. How  shall  I  restrain  my  passion  ?  I  can  hold  my 
hand  from  striking  my  neighbor,  but  how  my  heart  from 
hating  }  And  Christ  answers  finally  that  question  :  "  Ask, 
and  it  shall  be  given  you ;  seek,  and  ye  shall  find ;  knock, 
and  it  shall  be  opened  unto  you." 

I  remember,  as  a  boy,  sitting  by  the  fireside  of  a  little 
country  inn,  up  near  Dead  River  in  Maine,  and  hearing 
some  men  discuss  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  Rough 
fellows  they  were  ;  and  one  of  them,  scoffing  at  Chris- 
tianity, said,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thine  enemy — nonsense  ! 
It  is  not  in  human  nature."  He  was  right.  It  is  not  in 
human  nature  ;  but  it  was  in  Christ's  nature,  and  it  is  in 
the  divine  nature.  And  it  is  in  the  divine  nature  to 
impart  it  through  Christ  to  those  who  claim  it. 

The  close  and  climax  of  this  sermon  is  the  promise  of 
Christ  that  any  man,  seeing  this  as  something  better  than 
human  nature,  and  desiring,  can  get  it,  not  by  kneeling 
and  praying  for  it,  and  expecting  it  to  be  poured  into  him, 
but  by  following  the  word  and  the  example  and  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Master.  Not  by  saying,  "  Lord  !  Lord  !"  but 
by  doing  the  will  of  the  Father  which  is  in  heaven. 

How  shall  we  live  happy  lives .''  By  being  worthy  men 
and  women.  How  shall  we  be  worthy  men  and  women  ? 
Not  by  trying  laboriously  to  conform  our  lives  to  any  law, 
human  or  divine  ;  not  by  trying  to  do  what  men  will  praise 
us  for,  or  even,  I  might  almost  say,  what  God  will  praise 
us  for,  for  the  sake  of  such  praising  ;  but  by  seeking  to  be 
worthy  to  be  called  the  children  of  God,  by  giving  ourselves 
with  undeviating,  unflinching,  unaltering  consecration  to 
this  one  purpose  of  making  other  men  wiser,  better,  hap- 
pier than  they  would  have  been  but  for  our  existence  ;  and 
by  seeking  in  this  way  and  by  this  process  to  come  nearer 
every  day  to  Him  who  says  of  Himself,  "  God  is  love." 


CHAPTER   XV.— ELEMENTS    OF  CHRIST'S 
POPULARITY 

Luke  vii.,   1-58 ;  viii.,   1-3 


Jesus  Christ  was  one  of  the  most  popular  preachers  in 
history.  Without  advantages  which  often  confer  a  facti- 
tious popularity  upon  the  preacher,  without  a  great  cathe- 
dral, fine  music,  a  fashionable  following  ;  without  any  of 
the  other,  and  w'hat  we  may  call  accidental,  advantages 
which  often  legitimately  add  to  the  popularity  of  great 
preachers  ;  without  the  use  of  rhetorical,  elocutionary,  or 
dramatic  arts,  and  certainly  without  any  of  those  vices 
which  sometimes  make  a  public  speaker  dishonorably  pop- 
ular ;  without  pandering  to  the  people's  pride  and  preju- 
dice— Jesus  Christ  attracted  great  throngs  wherever  he 
went.  Once  the  people  tried  to  crown  him  king;  more 
than  once  he  deliberately  put  this  popularity  away  from 
him,  by  declaring  to  the  crowds  that  gathered  to  listen  to 
him  that  to  listen  w^as  nothing  without  obedience,  and 
that  to  obey  was  impossible  without  self-sacrifice.  The 
chapter  which  has  been  selected  for  our  study  to-day  both 
gives  evidence  of  his  popularity  and  gives  some  illustra- 
tions of  it.  I  propose  in  this  article  first  to  consider  what 
were  some  of  the  elements  of  that  popularity,  and  then  to 
point  out  how  the  incidents  in  this  chapter  furnished  illus- 
tration of  those  elements. 

In  Jesus  Christ's  teaching,  religion  and  philanthropy — 
that  is,  reverence  for  God  and  practical  love  of  and  ser- 
vice for  man — were  inseparably  joined  together.  This 
has  by  no  means  been  always  the  case  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  Its  temples  have  not  always  been  fountains  of 
charity  and  kindness.  It  is  true  that  the  laws  of  Moses 
abounded  with  philanthropic  precepts,  but  it  is  also  true 
that  the  Pharisaic  Church  had  forgotten  this  aspect  of 
the  Mosaic  law.  The  usual  treatment  of  disease  illus- 
trates the  inhumanity  of  man  in  Palestine  in  the  first  cen- 
tury.    Disease   was    habitually   regarded   as   a   curse   of 

60 


ELEMENTS    OF    CHRIST's    POPULARITY  6 1 

God,  and  alienated  the  sufferer  from  human  sympathy. 
The  blind  man  was  supposed  to  be  suffering  for  his 
own  or  his  parents'  sin  ;  the  leper  was  an  outcast,  and 
the  pious  rabbi  declared  that  he  was  to  be  stoned  if  he 
drew  near  to  men ;  the  lunatic  was  left  to  wander  friend- 
less and  alone  among  the  tombs.  At  such  a  time  as  this 
Christ  came  to  preach  and  practice  a  philanthropic  relig- 
ion. He  told  the  fishermen  how  to  cast  their  nets  that 
they  might  get  a  great  catch  of  fish  ;  he  fed  the  hungry 
people,  too  famished  and  faint  to  return  to  their  homes 
after  a  day's  preaching ;  he  interrupted  the  synagogue 
service  to  heal  the  paralyzed ;  he  reached  forth  his  hand 
to  touch  the  unclean  leper  and  make  him  whole ;  he 
stopped  the  funeral  upon  the  street  to  restore  the  only  son 
to  his  mother,  and  she  a  widow. 

Nor  was  this  sympathy  confined  to  those  who  were 
physically  suffering.  The  Pharisees  belonged  to  a  class 
and  spoke  to  a  class.  Jesus  Christ  came  from  the  common 
people  and  spoke  to  the  common  people.  Long  before 
Burns  he  taught  that  "A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that."  He 
declared  that  the  rich  man  who  cared  not  for  the  suffering 
poor  was  worse  than  the  beggar  that  lay  at  his  door ;  that 
the  successful  man  who  accumulated  wealth  for  his  own 
self-indulgent  pleasure  was  a  fool ;  that  the  publican 
seeking  to  be  delivered  from  sin  was  more  acceptable  than 
the  Pharisee  who  boasted  of  his  righteousness ;  that  to  do 
righteously  in  daily  life  was  better  than  to  be  punctilious 
in  temple  sacrifices.  He  practiced  what  he  preached, 
gathered  his  disciples  from  the  common  people,  lived 
among  them,  shared  their  life. 

The  unphilanthropic  and  class  religion  of  the  Pharisees 
was  ascetic.  To  the  one  fast  of  the  Mosaic  law  they  had 
added  a  number  of  others.  The  devout  Pharisee  fasted 
on  the  fourth  day  of  the  month,  because  on  that  day  Neb- 
uchadnezzar had  captured  Jerusalem  ;  on  the  fifth  day  of 
the  month,  because  on  that  day  the  Temple  had  been 
burned ;  on  the  seventh  day  of  the  month,  because  on  that 
day  the  Jewish  Governor  of  Jerusalem  had  been  murdered  ; 
on  the  tenth  day  of  the  month,  because  on  that  day  Jerusa- 
lem had  been  besieged  by  the  Chaldeans ;  on  the  fifth  day 
of  each  week,  because  on  that  day  Moses  went  up  to  the 
Mount  for  the  Law ;  and  on  the  second  day  of  each  week, 


62  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

because  on  that  day  Moses  brought  the  Law  down  from  the 
Mount.  Thus  religion  sat  in  sackcloth  and  ashes.  Men 
were  taught  that  to  be  religious  was  to  be  sad  of  visage 
and  thin  of  flesh.  Christ  swept  all  this  away.  Save  in  that 
great  wrestling  with  temptation  in  the  wilderness,  he  him- 
self never  fasted  ;  he  counseled  his  disciples  not  to  fast,  and 
he  told  them,  if  they  did,  to  keep  their  fasting  secret.  He 
came,  as  he  himself  said,  eating  and  drinking  ;  and  though 
men  railed  at  him  as  a  wine-bibber  and  a  drinker,  he  still 
went  on  eating  and  drinking.  He  compared  God's  king- 
dom to  the  rejoicings  of  a  marriage-feast ;  welcomed  the 
return  of  the  sinner  in  the  parable,  not  with  penances,  but 
with  feasting,  music,  and  dancing ;  welcomed  the  coming 
of  the  publican  into  his  companionship,  not  with  a  fast 
for  the  sins  of  the  past,  but  with  a  feasting  because  those 
sins  were  abandoned.  Pharisees  were  shocked  to  find  the 
teacher  of  religion  put  aside  all  the  conventional  and 
funereal  aspects  which  they  had  identified  with  the  religious 
life,  but  the  common  people  liked  joy  better  than  sorrow, 
and  welcomed  a  minister  who  came  with  gladness  in  his 
heart  and  a  song  on  his  lips. 

If  religion  in  the  first  century  was  largely  ascetic,  it  was 
still  more  rigorous  and  burdensome — a  religion  of  petty 
rules  and  regulations.  Religion  as  taught  by  the  Pharisees 
seemed  to  be  perpetually  saying  to  mankind,  "  Thou  shalt 
not."  A  striking  illustration  of  this  restrictive  character  is 
afforded  by  the  laws  respecting  cleanness  and  unclean- 
ness.  A  great  variety  of  objects  were  declared  unclean  ; 
so  many  that  there  was  always  danger  that  one  should 
pollute  himself  in  the  daily  contacts  of  life.  Out  of  this 
grew  an  elaborate  ritual  of  washing,  prescribed  to  the  last 
detail.  Not  less  restrictive  and  burdensome  were  the 
regulations  respecting  devotion.  The  prayers  must  be  re- 
peated in  a  certain  manner,  and  with  certain  gestures  and 
postures,  or  all  was  in  vain.  This  whole  notion  of  religion 
as  a  restriction  Christ  resolutely  and  vigorously  condemned. 
He  called  his  disciples  unto  freedom,  and  he  exercised  the 
freedom  himself  to  which  he  summoned  them.  He  touched 
the  unclean  leper  when  he  might  have  healed  him  by  a 
word ;  raised  the  dead  boy  from  the  bier  by  the  hand, 
when  he  might  have  called  him  back  to  life  as  he  did  Laza- 
rus, by  a  single  command ;  disregarded  the  elaborate  laws 


ELEMENTS    OF    CHRIST'S    POPULARITY  63 

respecting  ablution  ;  and  when  asked  by  his  disciples  for  a 
form  of  prayer,  gave  them  a  prayer  as  brief  as  it  is  beauti- 
ful, an4  as  simple  as  it  is  comprehensive,  which  he  did  not 
make  a  form,  though  we  have  since  made  it  so. 

Couple  with  this  his  disregard  of  traditional  theology, 
his  simplification  of  the  religious  life,  his  comprehension  of 
it  all  in  the  one  word  Love,  his  inspiration  of  hope  in 
hearts  dulled  by  despair,  and  his  teaching  that  God  is  the 
Father  of  the  whole  human  race  from  whom  every  child 
may  receive  help  and  hope.  His  sympathy  for  men  was  so 
broad  and  deep  that  neither  class  nor  ceremony,  nor  the  lack 
of  either,  nor  even  personal  sinfulness,  could  debar  the  soul 
from  that  sympathy.  In  these  things  we  get  a  suggestion  of 
some  of  the  elements  in  the  character  and  teaching  of  this 
new  prophet,  whose  ministry  filled  the  people  with  enthu- 
siasm and  the  Pharisees  with  amazement  and  indignation. 

The  five  incidents  in  the  Scripture  passage  suggested 
for  our  study  for  to-day  illustrate  the  breadth  of  this  sym- 
pathy of  Christ.  It  overleaped  all  barriers  of  race.  When 
the  Jews  came  to  intercede  with  Jesus  for  a  Roman  cen- 
turion, whose  servant,  dear  to  him,  was  sick,  they  pleaded  for 
this  pagan,  saying,  "  He  is  worthy  because  he  loveth  our 
nation,  and  has  built  us  a  synagogue."  But  Christ,  perceiv- 
ing in  the  centurion's  appeal  for  help  -  "  I  am  not  worthy 
that  thou  shouldest  come  under  my  roof ;  say  only  a  word, 
and  my  servant  shall  be  healed  " — the  evidence  at  once  of 
his  humility  and  his  faith,  declared  that,  though  he  was 
a  Roman,  he  was  the  superior  of  the  Israelites  who  had  so 
patronizingly  commended  him.  In  Paris,  when  the  funeral 
passes  down  the  street,  the  bystanders  stop  and  doff  their 
hats  until  at  least  the  hearse  has  gone  by.  In  Palestine 
they  fall  into  the  train  and  swell  the  procession  to  the 
grave.  Strange  was  the  meeting  between  the  two  bands 
outside  the  city  of  Nain :  the  one,  a  band  of  mourners  fol- 
lowing the  bier  to  its  grave,  swelled  by  "  much  people  " 
who  had  joined  the  procession ;  the  other,  the  incoming 
band  of  Christ  and  his  disciples,  full  of  the  joy  of  the 
anticipated  kingdom  which  he  had  come  to  proclaim.  But 
the  forces  of  that  kingdom  were  not  so  great  but  that  he  could 
stop  in  the  highway,  approach  the  bier,  speak  to  the  dead 
who  lay  upon  it,  and  turn  the  funeral  procession  into  one 
as  joyous  as  that  which  it  had  met.     Some  attempt  had 


64  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

apparently  been  made  to  create  a  rivalry  between  the  dis- 
ciples of  John  and  of  Jesus.  The  methods  of  the  two 
prophets  were,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  radically 
different ;  and  John,  shut  up  in  the  Castle  of  Machaerus 
and  beginning  to  despair,  sent  his  disciples  to  learn  whether 
this  Jesus  whom  he  had  baptized  was  really  the  Messiah 
or  not.  The  unstinted  eulogy  which  Christ  pronounced  in 
the  ears  of  all  the  people  upon  John  the  Baptizer  afforded 
to  them  a  new  illustration  of  the  sympathy  of  this  prophet, 
who  could  see  the  heart  of  a  great  truth  behind  unwise 
methods  of  expression  and  imperfect  plans  of  reform.  To 
the  generous  spirit  which  perceives  the  good,  no  matter 
how  roughly  it  may  be  clothed,  the  heart  of  the  common 
people  always  responds.  Most  striking  of  all  these  illus- 
trations is  that  afforded  by  the  incident  of  his  anointing 
by  the  woman  "  which  was  a  sinner."  Notwithstanding 
eighteen  centuries  of  Christian  teaching,  there  are  few  of 
Christ's  disciples  who  have  any  word  of  sympathy  or  hope 
for  a  fallen  woman.  Who  has  not  longed  to  know  what 
were  the  words  of  Jesus  Christ  which  brought  the  peniten- 
tial tears  to  this  woman's  eyes  and  inspired  her  hands  to 
essay  the  sacred  office  of  anointing  ?  Those  words  have 
been  lost,  but  the  incident  remains,  one  of  the  most  pathetic 
in  Scripture,  to  show  the  depth,  the  tenderness,  and  the 
comprehensiveness  of  Christ's  sympathy,  which  welcomed 
the  touch  of  the  sinful  as  well  as  of  the  ceremonially  un- 
clean, if  perhaps  thereby  forgiveness  and  healing  might 
be  imparted.  It  was  a  novel  sight  in  Palestine  to  see 
women  accompanying  a  religious  teacher,  ministering  to 
him  and  received  by  him  into  the  circle  of  his  disciples ; 
for  Pharisaism  scoffed  at  womanhood.  To  teach  religion  to 
a  woman  was  regarded  as  hardly  better  than  to  teach  it  to 
a  pagan  ;  to  receive  women  into  the  infant  Church  on  terms 
of  approximate  equality  with  men  was  to  shock  all  the  prej- 
udices of  the  best  societ}^  but  it  was  also  to  arouse  all  the 
enthusiasm  which  lay  dormant  and  awaiting  resurrection  in 
the  hearts  of  the  peasantry. 

Thus  the  same  acts  which  excited  and  united  all  the 
class  elements  of  hostility  in  a  bitter  campaign  against  the 
Christ,  by  their  appeal  to  that  in  man  which  is  deeper 
than  ceremonial  or  convention,  aroused  in  the  hearts  of 
the  common  people  an  enthusiasm  for  this  prophet  of  faith 
and  hope  and  love. 


CHAPTER    XVI.— THE    EVOLUTION   OF   THE 

KINGDOM 

Luke  viii ,  4-15;  xi.,  14-36;  Matt,  xii.,  46-50;  xiii.,  1-53 


It  is  a  mistake  to  say,  as  sometimes  has  been  said,  that 
Jesus  Christ,  or  that  Paul,  was  an  evolutionist,  for  the  word 
evolution  is  one  of  modern  origin,  and  indicates  a  purely 
modern  form  of  thought.  But  I  believe  it  is  profoundly 
true  that  the  teachings  both  of  Jesus  Christ  and  of  Paul 
are  not  only  consistent  with  the  modern  doctrine  of  evo- 
lution, but  are  best  interpreted  by  using  that  doctrine  as  a 
clue  in  the  study  of  those  teachings.  By  the  doctrine  of 
evolution,  as  applied  to  spiritual  truth,  I  mean  that  the 
kingdom  of  God  does  not  come  suddenly,  with  observa- 
tion, and  by  a  series  of  miraculous  interventions ;  but 
gradually,  by  an  orderly  process,  from  small  beginnings  to 
large  results,  from  lower  and  simpler  forms  to  forms  that 
are  higher  and  more  complex.  If  any  one  supposes  that 
the  doctrine  of  evolution  means  that  this  growth,  either  in 
the  physical  or  the  spiritual  realm,  is  without  opposition, 
antagonism,  disappointments,  deteriorations,  decay,  I  think 
he  misunderstands  the  doctrine  of  evolution.  However 
this  may  be,  it  is  clear  that  this  growth,  as  Christ  inter- 
preted it,  has  to  meet  such  opposition  and  has  to  suffer 
such  disappointments. 

Whether  the  parables  which  are  collected  in  the  thir- 
teenth chapter  of  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  to  which  also 
one  should  be  added  from  the  fourth  chapter  of  Mark,^ 
were  all  spoken  at  one  time  by  Jesus  Christ,  and  consti- 
tuted practically  one  discourse,  or  were  spoken  at  different 
times  and  have  been  gathered  together  by  Matthew 
because  they  have  one  and  the  same  theme  running 
through  them  and  connecting  them,  it  is  not  important 
here  to  inquire  ;  they  certainly  are  thus  connected  by  one 

^  Mark  iv.,  26-29. 


66  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

theme,  and  it  is  with  that  theme  that  we  have  to  do  to-day. 
That  theme  is  the  evolution  of  the  kingdom. 

The  kingdom  of  God,  then,  as  Christ  interprets  it  to  us 
in  these  parables,  is  like  a  seed  cast  into  the  ground  which 
groweth  secretly,  the  sower  knoweth  not  how.  This  is  the 
first  truth  in  these  parables.  Whether  in  the  individual, 
in  the  church,  or  in  the  community,  spiritual  life  is  a 
growth.  It  did  not  in  the  Bible  burst  full-orbed  upon 
humanity  at  Mount  Sinai.  The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity 
was  not  revealed  in  the  creation  when  God  said,  "  Let 
zis  make  man  in  our  image."  The  consummation  of 
the  moral  law  is  not  embodied  in  the  Ten  Commandments, 
which  forbid  the  grosser  infractions  of  the  social  order. 
The  revelation  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus  is  clearer  than  the 
revelation  on  Mount  Sinai,  and  the  ideal  of  human  life  in 
the  example  of  Christ  Jesus  is  a  higher  ideal  than  that 
contained  in  the  Ten  Commandments.  The  Bible  is  the 
history  of  the  growth  of  a  seed;  the  history  of  a  dawning 
light.  The  light  is  clearer  in  the  Psalms  of  David  than  in 
the  laws  of  Moses ;  in  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah  than  in 
the  Psalms  of  David  ;  in  the  teachings  of  Christ  than  in  the 
prophecies  of  Isaiah.  That  which  is  true  of  the  Bible  is 
true  of  the  individual  soul.  It  does  not  come  into  the  per- 
fection of  spiritual  life  at  conversion  ;  it  is  to  grow  both 
in  grace  and  in  knowledge,  to  learn  more  of  God  and  of 
life,  to  be  both  wiser  and  better  as  it  is  older.  And  that 
which  is  true  of  the  individual  is  true  of  the  Church  :  for  its 
ideal  it  is  to  look,  not  backward,  but  forward  ;  it  is  to  run  a 
race,  and  the  goal  is  before  it.  The  nineteenth  century  is 
wiser  and  better  than  the  sixteenth,  and  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury was  wiser  and  better  than  the  fourth.  It  is  true  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  always  the  ideal  both  of  the  individual  and 
of  the  Church,  but  it  is  also  true  that  both  the  individual 
and  the  Church  are  to  grow  up  into  Christ  Jesus,  and  are 
to  continue  to  grow  until  they  come  to  a  perfect  manhood 
in  his  likeness. 

And  this  growth  is  accomplished  by  human  endeavor; 
it  comes  of  seed-sowing.  The  common  statement  that 
time  cures  all  things  is  not  true.  Time  cures  nothing. 
Time  only  gives  us  an  opportunity  to  do  something  for  the 
sick  and  the  sinful.  It  is  only  as  the  sower  went  forth  to 
sow  in  the  first  century,  it  is  only  as  other  sowers  have 


THE    EVOLUTION    OF    THE    KINGDOM  67 

gone  forth  in  the  centuries  which  have  followed,  holding 
the  same  seed  in  their  hand  and  casting  it  into  the  furrow, 
that  the  harvest  of  righteousness  can  grow.  And  how  it 
grows  depends  alike  upon  him  who  sows  and  him  who 
receives,  upon  the  seed  and  the  soil. 

Nor  is  this  growth  of  the  kingdom  without  opposition. 
There  are  evil  seeds  as  well  as  good  ones  ;  enemies  to 
righteousness  as  well  as  friends  of  righteousness.  There 
is  an  evolution  of  wickedness  as  well  as  of  virtue ;  a  prog- 
ress of  decay  as  well  as  of  growth,  and  the  end  of  that 
progress  is  death.  So,  as  the  world  grows  wiser  and  better, 
it  also  grows  wiser  and  wickeder.  Genius  furnishes  instru- 
ments for  war  as  well  as  for  peace ;  selfishness  assumes 
new  and  more  skillful  forms  ;  oppression,  vanquished  in 
one  guise,  reappears  in  another.  Not  only  are  there  tares 
in  every  wheat-field,  but  the  same  sun  and  the  same  rain 
minister  to  both,  and  both  grow  together.  Is  the  world 
growing  better  ?  Yes !  and  also  worse ;  for  better  and 
worse  go  together  side  by  side. 

The  growth  of  this  kingdom  is  not  to  be  measured  by 
the  littleness  of  its  beginnings.  Who  could  have  guessed 
Christianity  by  looking  into  the  manger  at  Bethlehem,  or 
the  Reformation  by  seeing  Luther  studying  the  chained 
Bible  in  his  monastery,  or  Methodism  from  the  little 
band  of  derided  students  at  Oxford,  or  New  England,  and 
the  greater  New  England  overspreading  the  Northwest, 
from  the  Mayflower?  The  seed  indeed  is  the  least  of 
all  seeds,  but  when  it  has  grown  it  is  the  greatest  among 
herbs. 

Because  this  growth  is  twofold,  because  it  must  meet 
with  hostility,  therefore  agitation  is  the  condition  of  it. 
Like  a  seed  in  the  ground  is  the  kingdom  of  God,  but  it  is 
also  like  yeast  in  the  flour.  The  Prince  of  Peace  comes 
bringing  a  sword  and  calling  for  war.  Virtue  and  truth  have 
nothing  to  fear  from  agitation.  Agitation  is  the  sign  of 
life.  It  is  always  falsehood  which  seeks  to  repress  free 
discussion.  It  is  always  iniquity  which  demands  to  be  let 
alone. 

But  the  end  of  this  battle  will  be  worth  all  that  it  costs — 
all  that  it  costs  to  the  individual  of  self-sacrifice,  all  that 
it  costs  to  the  community  in  blood  and  treasure.  Protest- 
antism paid  none  too  high  price  in  the  bloody  persecutions 


68  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

of  the  seventeenth  century  for  Uberty  of  thought.  The 
Puritan  was  well  paid  for  his  expatriation ;  the  free  and 
united  Nation  is  worth  the  price  we  paid  for  it  in  the  Civil 
War.  Liberty,  righteousness,  purity,  truth — these  are  in- 
deed treasures  hid,  but  worth  to  him  who  discovers  them 
all  that  he  has  ;  bought  oftentimes  only  at  a  great  price, 
but  never  at  a  price  too  great. 

In  God's  kingdom  the  process  of  seed-sowing  and  the 
process  of  harvesting  are  one.  Spring  and  autumn  over- 
lap one  another  and  constitute  a  strangely  commingled 
season.  The  plow  which  opens  the  furrow,  the  hopper 
which  drops  in  the  seed,  the  hoe  which  cultivates  the 
grain,  and  the  cradle  which  gathers  it,  work  as  one  instru- 
ment. To  change  the  figure,  time,  like  a  great  net,  is 
gathering  us  all  in  together  to  the  eternal  shore,  small  and 
great,  good  and  bad,  living  and  dead.  When  the  growths 
are  finished,  when  the  wheat  has  come  to  its  head,  and  the 
tares  also,  when  men  have  made  their  choice  betv/een  the 
earthly  and  the  heavenly  treasure,  when  the  processes  of 
time  for  good  and  for  evil  are  completed,  then  will  come 
the  judgment  with  its  tremendous  issues,  the  good  gathered 
into  vessels,  the  bad  cast  away. 


CHAPTER    XVII.— SIGNS    OF    CHRIST'S 
MESSIAHSHIP 

Mark  iv.,  35-41 ;  v.,  1-43 ;  Matt,  ix.,  27-34 


There  are  three  ways  in  which  we  may  approach  the 
miraculous  events  recorded  in  the  New  Testament.  We 
may  assume,  with  Robert  Elsmere,  that  "  miracles  do 
not  happen."  In  that  case  we  of  course  dismiss  these 
events  altogether  from  the  narrative,  or  endeavor  to  account 
for  them  by  some  naturalistic  interpretation,  as  by  sup- 
posing that,  under  the  influence  of  Christ's  teaching  of  the 
five  thousand,  those  who  had  provisions  gave  to  those  who 
had  none,  and  so  all  were  supplied.  Or  we  may  say,  with 
Huxley  and  Renan,  that  the  question  whether  these  events 
really  took  place  is  a  question  to  be  determined  by  histori- 
cal evidence,  but  that,  the  events  being  extraordinary,  the 
evidence  must  also  be  extraordinary.  We  may  then  pro- 
ceed to  examine  that  evidence,  leaving  our  decision  as  to 
Christ's  character  and  his  claims  upon  us  to  be  determined 
by  that  examination.  This  may  be  called,  perhaps,  the 
scientific  method — scientific,  though  not  really  philosophi- 
cal, since  it  leaves  out  of  view  the  most  important  factor, 
namely,  the  character  of  Jesus  Christ  himself.  If  Chris- 
tian believers  generally  pursued  this  method,  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  they  would  reach  Mr.  Huxley's  conclusion 
respecting  the  miracles — the  Scotch  verdict,  "  not  proven." 
It  is  true  that  the  historical  evidence  is  so  clear  and 
cogent  that  it  would  be  quite  convincing  as  to  any  ordinary 
events ;  but  these  events  are  so  extraordinary  that  a 
scientist  who  considers  the  evidence  without  taking  account 
of  the  extraordinary  character  of  Jesus  Christ  and  the 
revelation  he  professed  to  bring  to  man,  might  well  doubt 
whether  the  historical  evidence  established  the  remarkable 
phenomen'a.  There  is  a  third,  and  I  believe  a  much  more 
rational,  method  of  approaching  this  question.  Let  me  try 
to  state  it. 

The  student  pursuing  this  method  opens  his   New  Tes- 

69 


yo  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

tament  and  reads  the  four  Gospels.  What  first  and  most 
impresses  him  in  this  story  is,  not  the  remarkable  inci- 
dents known  as  miracles,  but  the  remarkable  man  concern- 
ing whom  this  story  is  told.  It  is  clearly  no  fancy  por- 
trait. The  evidence  of  its  historical  reality,  which  I  cannot 
go  into  here,  is  such  as  to  satisfy  the  most  incredulous 
that  Jesus  Christ  lived,  and  that  he  was  such  a  man  and 
lived  such  a  life  as  is  here  portrayed.  Nor  is  the  portrait 
idealized.  It  is  clear  that  these  Galilean  peasants  were 
alike  incapable  of  inventing  or  of  embellishing  the  story. 
There  are,  on  the  contrary,  considerable  indications  that 
they  failed  to  understand  their  Master,  and  have  marred, 
not  improved,  the  picture  by  their  treatment  of  it.  The  stu- 
dent then  begins  to  study  this  unique  life  and  character.  He 
finds  that  this  Jesus  Christ  was  himself  the  central  object  of 
his  teaching.  Whatever  theory  the  student  may  form  as 
to  the  inherent  nature  of  this  remarkable  man  and  his 
relation  to  the  Eternal  Father,  he  cannot  doubt  that  Jesus 
claimed  to  come  from  the  Father,  to  be  the  Father's  well- 
beloved  Son,  to  have  come  into  the  world  to  manifest  the 
Father,  and  to  bring  to  sinful  men  a  revelation  of  the 
Father's  love  and  gracious  help.  Is  it  possibly  true  that 
the  great  Unknown  has  revealed  himself  to  men  in  this 
one  unique  human  life  ?  that  Jesus  Christ  is  not  only  a 
revealer  of  truth  by  his  words,  but  a  revelation  of  a  Person 
by  his  life  ?  The  more  the  student  studies  this  character 
the  more  he  believes  in  an  affirmative  answer  to  this  ques- 
tion. He  at  last  assumes  it,  as  at  least  a  hypothetical 
answer.  He  forms,  let  us  say,  the  hypothesis  that  God, 
whom  philosophy  and  much  of  religion  have  regarded  as 
the  Unknown,  if  not  the  Unknowable,  has  manifested  him- 
self to  men  in  his  works  and  in  the  noble  deeds  and  in- 
spired thoughts  of  the  great  and  good  of  all  ages,  and  in 
the  aspirations,  coming  we  know  not  whence,  in  our  own 
souls  in  their  highest  experiences,  and  has  also  revealed 
himself  pre-eminently  in  this  Jesus  of  Nazareth ;  that  the 
hope  of  the  world  for  such  a  revelation,  itself  the  impulse 
of  all  true  worship,  which  is  a  seeking  after  God,  has  its 
fulfillment  in  this  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ;  that,  in  a  word,  he 
is  the  Christ.  With  this  hypothetical  faith  he  re-reads  the 
Gospels  again.  The  miracles,  upon  this  hypothesis,  no 
longer  seem  extraordinary  to  him.     It  would  rather  be 


SIGNS    OF    CHRIST  S    MESSIAHSHIP  7 1 

extraordinary  if  there  were  none.  It  does  not  seem 
strange  to  him  that  from  such  a  man  power  should  scintil- 
late in  forms  of  manifestation  not  without  remote  resem- 
blances in  manifestations  of  power  by  other  sons  of  God, 
but  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  mankind,  as  this  Man  is 
unparalleled  among  the  sons  of  men. 

Still  further  pursuing  this  train  of  thought,  he  asks  him- 
self, What  is  a  miracle  ?  Discarding  all  theological  and 
modern  definitions,  he  goes  to  the  Gospels  themselves  to 
see  what  miracles,  as  there  recorded,  are.  He  finds  four 
words  used  to  designate  them  ;  namely,  Works,  Wonders, 
Powers,  and  Signs — the  latter  being  the  translation  of  the 
word  sometimes  transliterated  miracle.  A  miracle,  then,  is  a 
work  generally  of  beneficence,  calculated  to  arouse  wonder 
in  the  beholder,  manifesting  power  more  than  human,  and 
serving  as  a  sigJi  of  divine  authority.  If  there  was  such  a 
man  as  Jesus  Christ,  if  he  Was  a  unique  revelation  of  God, 
if  he  came  to  bring  to  sinful  men  a  message  and  a  ministry 
of  forgiveness  and  of  cure,  how  could  it  be  that  there 
should  not  be  miracles,  thus  defined  ?  how  possible  that 
he  should  not  do  wotks  of  love,  wonders  to  that  age  and  to 
all  ages,  manifesting  the  power  which  resided  in  him,  and 
serving  to  all  men  as  a  sign  that  he  was  what  he  claimed 
to  be? 

Dropping  for  a  moment  the  impersonal  form  and  express- 
ing my  own  faith  :  I  believe  in  the  miracles  because  I 
believe  in  Jesus  Christ,  not  in  Jesus  Christ  because  I 
believe  in  the  miracles.  The  foundation  of  my  faith  in 
the  Gospels  is  not  the  works  He  did,  but  He  Himself ;  and 
I  believe  the  works  because  I  can  believe  anything  good 
and  great  of  Him.  In  short,  accepting  His  own  alterna- 
tive, I  believe  that  He  was  in  the  Father  and  the  Father  in 
Him  :  I  do  not  believe  Him  merely  for  the  works'  sake. 

Let  me,  then,  ask  the  reader  for  a  moment  to  try  to 
take  this  point  of  view.  Let  him  accept,  simply  as  a 
working  hypothesis,  this  Christian  faith,  that  "  God  was  in 
Christ  reconciling  the  world  to  himself,'"'  that  the  Unknown 
is  Love,  and  that  this  Unknown,  infinite  in  love,  has  come 
to  earth  that  in  a  human  life  he  might  manifest  that  love 
to  men,  and  lift  them  out  of  themselves,  and  bring  them 
to  the  Father.  If  the  reader  once  accepts  this  hypothesis, 
does  it  seem  impossible  to  him  that  such  an  One  should 


72 


THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 


manifest  his  power  in  works  of  love  that  awaken  the 
wonder  of  his  friends  ;  that  he  should  still  the  tempest, 
should  quiet,  calm,  cure  the  lunatic  ;  should  conquer  dis- 
ease, should  even  open  the  gates  of  death  and  call  back 
the  dead  to  life  again  ?  If  he  was  the  Son  of  God,  if  he 
had  a  message  worthy  of  such  an  authentication,  why 
should  we  think  it  impossible  that  the  needed  authentica- 
tion should  be  given  ? 

For  the  message  needed  authentication.  Consider  the 
two  great  burdens  which  the  world  of  men  had  long  borne, 
and  from  which  they  could  get  relief  only  by  an  authen- 
ticated revelation. 

Long  had  the  world  stood  before  death  appalled  and 
sorrow-stricken.  In  vain  it  had  endeavored  to  look  be- 
yond the  sod — it  could  see  nothing.  Its  noblest  prophets 
and  noblest  apostles  could  tell  it  nothing.  There  was  a 
vague  hope  of  some  future  life — nothing  more.  Even  Soc- 
rates, noblest  philosopher  of  Greece,  could  offer  to  his 
disciples,  as  they  gathered  at  his  dying  bed,  no  better  com- 
fo-rt  than  the  direction,  "  Go,  search  Greece  for  a  charmer ; 
it  is  a  wide  world  ;  and  perhaps  somewhere  you  will  find 
some  one  who  will  give  you  comfort  and  consolation." 
And  the  other  burden  was  even  greater  and  harder  to  be 
borne — the  sense  of  an  irreparable  past,  the  sense  of  an 
evil  done  that  could  not  be  undone,  the  sense  of  a  great 
gap  between  the  soul  and  God  that  could  not  be  bridged. 
In  the  temples  of  pagan  religions  everywhere  you  find 
the  same  cry  of  men — ^that  cry  which  comes  to  us  from 
India  in  her  song  :  "  O  Varuna,  have  mercy  !  O  Varuna, 
have  mercy!"  And  no  answer  from  Varuna  ;  no  song  of 
triumph  from  the  temple.  For  the  history  of  paganism 
has  been  always  the  same — humanity  floundering  in  the 
slough  of  despond,  with  never  a  song  on  its  lips  and  never 
a  gleam  of  hope  on  its  brow. 

Now  there  comes  to  the  world  One  who  says,  "  I  can 
answer  your  problems.  I  can  tell  you  what  there  is  after 
death  :  a  land  of  glory  and  an  angel  throng.  I  can  tell 
you  whether  God  will  have  mercy  on  you  :  he  is  a  for- 
giving Father."  This  messenger  does  not  tell  us  what  he 
thinks^  nor  what  he  hopes.  He  brings  his  message,  so  he 
says,  from  the  heavens.  He  knows  that  there  is  a  glory 
beyond  the  grave.     He  knows  that  there  is  a  hand  of  God 


SIGNS  OF  Christ's  messiahship  73 

outstretched  to  lift  this  burden  on  our  back  that  is  sinking 
us  in  this  slough  of  despond. 

It  is  not  enough  for  us  to  have  the  intuition  of  a  poet 
guessing  that  there  is  a  hope  beyond  the  grave  when  we 
stand  before  the  grave  in  which  our  best  beloved  lies.  It 
is  not  enough  for  us  to  have  a  Jewish  poet  guessing  that 
there  is  a  mercy  in  the  great  Father  when  we  are  bowed 
down  beneath  the  burden  of  an  irreparable  past,  and  know 
not  what  God  can  or  will  do  for  us.  We  need  an  assur- 
ance that  will  speak  to  us  of  life  and  hope.  And  this 
Messenger,  that  brings  this  word  out  of  the  unknown, 
brings  an  authentication  of  his  divine  authority.  He  comes 
clad  with  a  power  that  shows  itself  despite  him.  The  mob 
parts  before  him,  awed  by  the  majesty  of  his  presence  ; 
the  very  hem  of  his  garment  heals.  He  works  no  wonders 
merely  to  stir  men's  admiration  ;  but  power  flashes  from 
him  as  electric  sparks  from  the  Leyden  jar. 

Whether  a  prophet  eighteen  centuries  ago  stilled  a  tem- 
pest, cured  a  lunatic,  raised  a  widow's  son,  are  not  in  them- 
selves important  questions  ;  but  it  is  transcendently  impor- 
tant that  we  should  know  that  in  these  Lessons  we  are 
studying  the  life  of  one  surcharged  with  divinity  and  bring- 
ing to  us  and  to  all  the  world  an  authoritative  revelation  of 
pardon  and  of  hope. 


CHAPTER   XVIII.— THE   COMMISSION    OF   THE 

TWELVE 

Mark  vi.,  i-6;  Matt,  ix.,  35-38;  x.,   1-42;  xi.,  i 


In  a  previous  chapter^  I  have  spoken  of  Christ's  selection 
of  the  Twelve,  of  the  principles  upon  which  he  selected 
them,  and  of  their  personal  character.  To  these  Twelve 
he  gave  two  commissions — one  while  he  was  still  living 
with  them,  the  other  just  before  his  ascension.  It  is  with 
the  first  of  these  commissions  that  we  have  to  do  to-day. 

The  demands  on  his  time  had  become  so  great  that  he 
could  no  longer  respond  to  them  unaided.  His  disciples 
had  been  with  him  certainly  for  over  a  year  ;  he  sent  them 
forth  two  by  two  to  heal  and  to  preach  in  the  villages,  while 
he  confined  his  ministry  to  the  larger  cities.^  It  is  a  mis- 
take to  suppose,  as  it  has  sometimes  been  supposed,  that 
the  methods  which  Christ  prescribed  for  the  Twelve  in 
this  provincial  ministry  in  Galilee  are  authoritatively  im- 
posed upon  the  Church  for  all  time.  Methods  adapted  to 
one  age  and  condition  may  be  very  ill-adapted  to  another 
But  there  are  certain  fundamental  principles  involved  in 
and  implied  by  the  directions  which  Christ  gave  to  the 
Twelve  in  this  their  first  missionary  circuit,  which,  if  not  uni- 
versally applicable,  certainly  throw  light  upon  the  methods 
to  be  pursued  and  the  work  to  be  done  by  the  disciples  of 
Christ  in  all  ages  and  in  all  countries. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  we  observe  that  Christ  selected 
men  for  the  specific  work  of  preaching  the  Gospel.  Not 
all  who  believed  in  him  were  to  become  preachers.  Some 
he  forbade  to  do  so,  telling  them  to  return  to  their  homes 
and  go  on  with  their  daily  life.  Others  he  commanded  to 
leave  their  daily  vocation  and  devote  themselves  wholly 
to  the  ministry.  The  example  of  Christ  is,  therefore,  an 
authority  for  the  statement  that  it  is  legitimate  to   appoint 

1  Chap.  XIII.  2  Compare  Luke  ix.,  6.  with  Matt,  xi.,  i. 

74 


THE    COMMISSION     OF    THE    TWELVE  75 

Special  men  for  the  special  work  of  the  Gospel  ministry. 
It  is  true  that  Christ  laid  upon  all  men  the  duty  of  pro- 
claiming their  principles,  but  he  did  not  leave  the  procla- 
mation of  those  principles  dependent  upon  such  chance 
occasions  as  men  occupied  in  other  professions  might  find. 
On  the  contrary,  from  the  many  disciples  who  loved  and 
honored  him,  he  selected  a  few  upon  whom  he  laid  the 
duty  of  making  the  preaching  of  his  Gospel  their  life-work. 
But  he  did  not  organize  these  men  into  a  priestly  order. 
They  were  prophets,  not  priests.  The  distinction  is  im- 
portant. The  priests  of  Judaism  were  the  children  of  a 
particular  tribe,  and  the  descendants  of  a  particular  family 
in  that  tribe.  No  one  could  perform  priestly  functions 
who  was  not  in  the  order  of  priestly  succession.  These 
priests  were  supported  by  regular,  formal,  and  established 
contributions ;  were  directed  to  conduct  the  public  wor- 
ship ;  were  intrusted  with  all  the  sacrificial  ceremonies  of 
the  Jewish  Church ;  had  the  exclusive  right  of  passing 
jbeyond  the  rail  which  separated  the  court  of  the  priests 
from  the  outer  courts  ;  were  in  a  true  sense  representatives 
of  God  to  the  people,  and  mediators  between  the  people 
and  God.  But  there  also  grew  up  in  Palestine  under  the 
Old  Testament  another  order — the  prophetic  order.  These 
prophets  belonged  to  no  line  of  succession ;  to  no  special 
tribe  or  family ;  received  no  consecration,  no  anointing  ; 
were  set  apart  by  no  ceremony;  ministered  in  no  temple; 
were  not  separated  from  the  laity  by  rail,  or  wall,  or  garb ; 
never  offered  sacrifices.  They  were  not  priests,  they  were 
laymen.  Their  function  was  not  to  mediate  between  the 
people  and  God,  but  to  teach  the  people  truth  about  God, 
duty,  life.  Now,  Christ  appointed  no  priesthood.  The 
priesthood  is  a  Jewish,  not  a  Christian,  office.  There  was 
no  line  of  succession  provided  for  in  the  old  prophetic 
order,  and  none  hinted  at  in  Christ's  prophetic  order ;  no 
authorized  and  established  support  given  to  the  prophets, 
and  none  to  the  Apostles ;  no  hierarchical  authority,  no 
sacred  and  exclusive  duty,  laid  upon  the  Hebrew  prophets  ; 
none  upon  the  Christian  Apostles.  They  were  simply 
twelve  ordinary  folk,  gathered  by  their  Master,  first  to 
learn  of  him,  and  then  to  repeat  upon  the  housetop  what 
they  had  heard  in  the  ear.  To  my  mind  it  is  impossible 
to  reconcile  the  notion  of  a  continuing  priesthood  with  the 


76  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

teaching  of  Jesus  Christ.  Under  the  Jewish  system  only 
the  priest  could  enter  the  sacred  precincts  of  the  Temple, 
only  the  High  Priest  the  Holy  of  Holies  where  God  was 
supposed  to  dwell.  This  was  wholly  foreign  to  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  Christ.  He  taught  that  God  is  the  universal 
Father,  that  we  are  all  God's  children ;  that  there  need  be 
no  mediator  between  the  Father  and  his  child ;  that  no 
altar-rail  can  separate  between  the  arms  of  the  Everlasting 
Love  and  the  poor  and  the  needy  whom  God  loves ;  that 
there  is  need  neither  of  priest  nor  of  bloody  sacrifice  to 
open  a  door  to  the  heart  of  God  that  his  children  may 
enter  in.  The  very  Gospel  which  the  Apostles  were  ap- 
pointed to  preach  was  that  all  this  belonged  to  an  ancient 
order,  that  the  time  was  ripe  for  teaching  that  every  man 
is  a  child  of  God,  and  that  for  every  man  the  way  is  opened 
to  the  heart  of  his  heavenly  Father. 

This  prophetic  apostolic  order  was  made  wholly  depend- 
ent upon  the  voluntary  subscription  of  the  people  for  its 
support.  The  Twelve  were  to  take  no  money  in  their  purse, 
no  provisions,  not  even  two  garments  ;  they  were  to  go 
from  house  to  house,  trusting  the  hospitality  of  those  to 
whom  they  ministered,  and  trusting  to  them  alone.  Doubt- 
less there  are  disadvantages  in  a  dependent  ministry,  but 
the  dangers  are  incomparably  less  than  the  dangers  in  an 
independent  ministry.  In  spite  of  the  dependence  of  the 
Protestant  clergy  on  the  voluntary  free-will  offerings  of  the 
congregation,  I  venture  to  affirm  that  there  are  no  ministers 
in  the  world  and  no  class  of  men  in  America  who  are  more 
thoroughly  and  conscientiously  independent  of  public  opin- 
ion than  the  Protestant  ministers  in  these  United  States. 
They  are  more  ready  to  oppose  the  current  sentiment  of 
their  congregation  than  are  lawyers  to  antagonize  the 
prejudices  of  their  clients,  or  doctors  the  prejudices  of 
their  patients,  or  merchants  the  prejudices  of  their  cus- 
tomers, or  politicians  the  prejudices  of  their  constituents, 
or  even  newspaper  editors  the  prejudices  of  their  readers. 
And  in  no  Established  Church  in  the  world  are  the  preach- 
ers more  frank  and  courageous  in  their  utterances  than  are 
the  ministers  in  the  unestablished  churches  in  free  America. 

The  ministry  which  Christ  thus  organized  was  an  itiner- 
ant ministry.  The  Twelve  were  to  travel  two  by  two, 
from  town  to  town,  preaching  the  Gospel.     Subsequently 


THE    COMMISSION    OF    THE    TWELVE  77 

a  similar  appointment  was  made  of  seventy  to  fulfill  a  simi- 
lar mission  in  Perea.  They  also  constituted  an  itinerant 
ministry ;  they  also  were  to  travel  from  town  to  town  carrying 
the  good  news  of  the  kingdom.  It  does  not,  I  think,  follow 
from  this  that  the  ininistry  of  the  Church  of  Christ  is  always 
to  be  itinerant,  but  it  does  follow  that  it  is  always  to  be  an 
aggressive  and  missionary  ministry.  No  organization  is  a 
Church  of  Christ  which  does  not  go  forth  to  teach  those 
that  are  without  the  Glad-Tidings  of  Christ's  Gospel.  He 
who  bade  his  disciples  follow  him  declared  of  himself  that 
he  came  to  seek  as  well  as  to  save  that  which  was  lost. 
He  compared  his  kingdom  to  a  wedding-feast  whose  host 
sent  his  messengers  out  into  the  highways  and  the  hedges 
to  compel  the  poor  to  come  in  and  partake  of  it.  Missions 
are  not  an  incident  of  the  Christian  Church.  The  Chris- 
tian Church  exists  for  the  sake  of  missions  ;  missionary 
activity  is  the  very  eni  of  its  being. 

And  this  ministry  of  the  Twelve  was  to  be  a  philan- 
thropic ministry.  Preaching  and  healing  were  to  go  together. 
The  same  love  which  ministers  to  the  spirit  will  minister 
to  the  body.  We  cannot  divide  man  into  departments  and 
treat  the  physical  organism  as  though  it  were  independent 
of  the  spiritual,  and  the  spiritual  as  though  it  were  inde- 
pendent of  the  physical.  The  modern  church,  which  feeds, 
and  clothes,  and  medicates,  and  teaches,  and  preaches,  is 
ministering  in  the  spirit  of  the  Master,  provided  it  never 
forgets  that  the  spiritual  is  more  important  than  the  intel- 
lectual, as  the  intellectual  is  more  important  than  the 
physical ;  that,  in  other  words,  the  animal  is  for  the  social 
and  the  social  is  for  the  spiritual ;  or,  again,  in  Christ's 
own  words,  that  "  the  life  is  more  than  meat  and  the  body 
more  than  raiment." 

Such  are  some,  by  no  means  all,  of  the  universal  prin- 
ciples illustrated  in  Christ's  first  commission  to  the  first 
heralds  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 


CHAPTER   XIX.— THE   BREAD    OF   LIFE 

Mark  vi.,  30-56;  John  vi.,  22-71 


The  popularity  of  Jesus  Christ  reached  its  climax  in  his 
feeding  of  the  five  thousand  on  the  eastern  shore  of  the 
Sea  of  Galilee.  The  people  in  their  enthusiasm  would 
have  crowned  him  as  their  king  in  spite  of  himself,  and 
compelled  him  to  lead  them  in  an  attack  upon  their  Roman 
oppressors.  Immediately  following  this  event,  Christ 
preached  a  sermon  in  the  synagogue  at  Capernaum  which, 
from  its  theme,  is  known  as  the  Sermon  on  the  Bread  of 
Life.  It  produced  a  very  remarkable  effect:  it  put  an  end 
to  his  popularity.  Those  who  had  followed  him  with 
enthusiasm  abandoned  him,  and  so  great  was  the  falling 
off  that  he  turned  sadly  to  his  twelve  familiar  friends  and 
asked  them  if  they  also  were  going  to  leave  him.  The 
popularity  which  he  thus  put  away  never  revived.  Indeed, 
this  sermon  at  Capernaum  was  substantially  the  end  of  his 
popular  ministry  in  Galilee.  Immediately  after  preaching 
it  he  retired,  with  his  twelve  friends,  first  to  Phoenicia  and 
afterwards  to  the  vicinity  of  Caesarea  Philippi,  and  occu- 
pied himself  in  giving  them  private  instructions  respecting 
their  conduct  in  the  future  kingdom.  It  was  as  though 
the  effect  of  his  sermon  had  been  to  confirm  his  convic- 
tion that  the  kingdom  of  God  was  not  to  be  set  up  on  the 
earth  in  his  lifetime,  and  that  he  must  make  haste  to 
instruct  others  to  carry  on  the  work  after  h-e  was  gone. 

When  we  read  this  discourse  in  the  light  of  the  subse- 
quent history,  it  is  somewhat  difficult  to  see  why  it  should 
have  produced  the  effect  which  it  did  produce.  The  gist 
of  the  sermon  was  that  his  disciples  must  feed  on  him — 
must,  as  he  expressed  it,  eat  his  flesh  and  drink  his  blood — 
or  they  could  have  no  life  in  them.  The  figure  is  strange 
and  enigmatical  at  the  best,  and  our  difficulty  of  interpret- 
ing it  is  still  further  enhanced  by  two  considerations.  A 
year  and  a  half  or  two  years  after  this  discourse  Jesus 
instituted  the  Last  Supper,  where  he  repeated  in  words  as 

7^ 


THE    BREAD    OF    LIFE 


79 


well  as  in  act  the  same  figure,  and  almost  immediately 
thereafter  was  put  to  a  cruel  death.  We  read  this  dis- 
course at  Capernaum  in  the  light  of  this  subsequent  his- 
tory, and  cannot  fail  to  modify  our  interpretation  by  reason 
of  that  history.  There  is,  indeed,  ground  for  so  doing. 
It  may  well  be  said  that  the  discourse  was  prophetic,  that 
Christ  had  in  mind  these  events,  and  that  we  are  to  have 
them  in  mind  also.  Nevertheless,  the  first  canon  of  inter- 
pretation of  any  address  is  that  we  must  understand  how 
the  auditors  would  have  understood  it,  even  though  we  see 
a  larger  meaning  than  they  saw.  It  is  not  easy  for  us, 
instructed  by  later  history,  to  understand  how  the  unin- 
structed  auditors  at  Capernaum  would  have  understood 
this  discourse.  Moreover,  the  discourse  is  not  only  read 
in  the  light  of  subsequent  history  ;  the  report  of  it  was 
written  in  the  light  of  that  history.  There  is  small  reason 
for  supposing  that  John  has  given  us  a  verbatim  report  of 
this  discourse.  The  ancient  historians  were  accustomed 
to  give  in  the  form  of  direct  discourse  what  is  really  their 
abstract,  and  often  their  interpretative  abstract,  of  the  origi- 
nal. Indeed,  this  is  not  infrequently  the  custom  of  m.odern 
historians.  Numerous  illustrations  of  it  may  be  found  in 
Macaulay.  It  is  inherently  probable  that  John  pursued 
this  course.  The  Sermon  on  the  Bread  of  Life,  as  it  is 
reported  in  his  Gospel,  can  easily  be  read  in  five  or  six 
minutes.  It  is  hardly  probable  that  the  discourse  took  no 
longer  time  than  that  in  the  delivery.  Presumptively, 
therefore,  we  have  a  report  of  this  sermon  or  address 
written  out  after  the  light  thrown  upon  it  by  the  Last 
Supper  and  the  crucifixion  ;  presumptively,  the  interpreta- 
tion of  that  discourse  afforded  by  those  events  has  colored 
John's  report  of  the  original. 

Bearing  these  facts  in  mind,  and  recognizing  a  conse- 
quent difficulty  of  any  absolute  and  complete  interpreta- 
tion, let  us  consider  what,  in  view  of  all  the  circumstances, 
is  the  central  truth  in  this  Sermon  on  the  Bread  of  Life. 

I.  I  think  we  may  dismiss  with  very  little  consideration 
the  notion  that  Christ's  words  are  to  be  taken  literally ; 
that  his  flesh  and  blood  were  literally  eaten  and  drunken 
at  the  Last  Supper,  and  that  they  reappear  miraculously 
whenever  the  bread  and  wine  are  blessed  by  the  priest  in 
our  own  time.     We  may  dismiss  this  theory,  widely  as  it 


8o  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

has  been  entertained,  because  Christ  says  explicitly  and  in 
terms  that  such  literal  eating,  if  it  were  possible,  would  be 
of  no  advantage.  "You  are  not  to  eat,"  he  says,  "as 
your  fathers  did  eat  manna  and  are  dead;"  and,  again,  "the 
flesh  profiteth  nothing."  This  is  literally  true.  There  is 
no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  flesh  and  blood  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  differed  in  any  respect  from  that  of  other  mortals, 
and  that  if  it  were  possible  to  partake  of  them  it  would  be 
of  any  benefit  to  body,  soul,  or  spirit  of  the  partaker. 

2.  It  seems  to  me,  too,  that  we  may  also  dismiss  with- 
out much  more  discussion  the  notion  that  Christ  means 
simply  that  we  are  to  accept  his  teachings,  that  we  are,  to 
use  the  modern  form  of  his  own  figure,  to  imbibe  those 
teachings.  It  is  true  that  the  Hebrew  rabbis  commonly 
used  in  Christ's  time  a  metaphor  similar  to  that  which 
Christ  used  here.  "  To  eat  of  my  bread  "  was  with  them 
a  popular  phrase  equivalent  to  "  partake  of  my  doctrine." 
But  it  would  seem  that  Christ  labored  to  show  that  he 
meant  something  more  than  this.  He  does  not  tell  his 
disciples  that  they  must  eat  of  his  bread,  but  that  they 
must  eat  of  hijn,  and,  that  there  may  be  no  misunderstand- 
ing, that  they  may  see  clearly  that  he  means  something 
more  than  imbibing  his  teachings  or  eating  of  his  bread, 
he  adds  that  they  must  eat  his  flesh  and  drink  his  blood. 
And  yet,  that  they  may  understand  that  this  is  a  metaphor 
not  to  be  taken  literally,  he  closes  his  discourse  with  the 
declaration  that  it  is  the  spirit  that  quickeneth,  the  flesh 
profiteth  nothing. 

Let  us,  then,  look  for  a  moment  at  the  metaphor  itself ; 
at  its  philosophical  suggestiveness.  When  we  eat  bread  or 
drink  wine,  what  happens.?  The  bread  that  we  eat,  the 
wine  that  we  drink,  is  digested  and  converted  into  animal 
tissue;  it  becomes  flesh,  nerve,  bone,  blood.  It  ceases  to 
be  something  apart  from  us,  and  becomes  a  part  of  our  own 
organization.  In  a  somewhat  analogous  manner  is  the 
process  of  intellectual  nutrition  carried  on.  The  child 
commits  to  memory  a  page  out  of  a  book,  but  it  remains 
something  extraneous  to  the  child  ;  it  is  something  apart 
from  him  ;  it  is  something  which  he  has  committed  to 
memory  and  can  recite  ;  but  it  does  not  change  his  opinions, 
qualify  his  judgment,  influence  his  will,  or  affect  his  action. 
In  the  higher  reading  and  culture  all  this  does  take  place. 


THE    BREAD    OF    LIFE  8l 

The  student  no  longer  merely  commits  the  author  to 
memory ;  he  imbibes  his  author ;  he  catches  the  spirit  of 
Shakespeare,  or  Browning,  or  Wordsworth;  he  gets  his 
favorite  author's  view  of  life.  Or,  is  it  a  philosopher  he  is 
studying,  he  becomes  himself  Hegelian  or  Kantian.  He 
has  done  something  more  now  than  merely  learn  a  book  ; 
he  has  modified  his  intellectual  character  by  digesting  and 
assimilating — we  are  compelled  to  use  the  metaphor — the 
author  on  whom  he  has  fed. 

Now,  a  similar  process  is  possible  spiritually.  The  most 
transcendent  influence  in  the  world  is  that  of  personality. 
One  may  be  brought  under  the  influence  of  another  and 
overmastering  personality,  so  that  his  own  is  modified, 
transformed,  or  possibly  subjugated.  He  thinks  of  life 
differently ;  he  forms  new  resolutions  ;  he  pursues  new 
courses  of  conduct.  To  feed  on  Christ  is  not  merely  to 
learn  what  he  has  had  to  say  ;  it  is  not  merely  to  obey  him 
as  a  soldier  obeys  a  general.  It  is  to  so  absorb  him,  so 
catch  his  spirit,  so  be  molded  and  influenced  by  his  life, 
as  to  be  ''  a  new  man  in  Christ  Jesus."  If  partaking  of  the 
sacrament  helps  this,  then  partaking  of  the  sacrament  is 
one  method  of  feedmg  on  Christ.  If  reading  the  Gospel 
helps  this,  then  reading  the  Gospel  is  another  method  of 
feeding  on  Christ.  But  neither  partaking  of  the  sacrament 
nor  reading  the  Gospel  constitutes  a  feeding  on  Christ, 
unless  the  result  is  a  new  and  more  Christlike  spirit  in  the 
spirit  of  the  man,  a  new  and  more  Christlike  life  lived  by  him. 

It  is  not  easy  to  state  what  relation  Christ's  Passion 
and  death  has  to  thus  feeding  on  him.  But  it  is  not  neces- 
sary here  to  consider  this  question.  We  are  endeavoring 
to  see  how  Christ's  auditors  would  have  understood  this 
sermon,  and  they  knew  nothing  of  his  coming  Passion  and 
death.  But  when  they  learned  that  the  kingdom  of  God 
was  a  life  of  loyalty  to  God  ;  that  to  inherit  that  kingdom 
was  to  enter  upon  such  a  life  as  Christ  was  then  living  ;  that 
the  change  must  be  in  them,  not  in  their  government  or 
their  wealth  or  their  social  circumstances  ;  that  he  was  lead- 
ing them,  not  to  a  political  domination,  but  to  a  righteous 
self-control,  not  to  new  conditions  of  life,  but  to  a  life 
itself  new;  and  thathe  himself,  in  his  loneliness  and  poverty, 
illustrated  the  life  to  which  he  invited  them,  they  drew 
back  and  followed  him  no  more. 


CHAPTER   XX.— A     PERIOD    OF    SECLUSION 

Mark  vL,  24-28;  viil.,  1-26;  Matt.  xvL,  13-28 


It  has  become  evident  that  the  Jewish  nation  is  not 
ready  for  the  revelation  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  Rejected 
by  his  own  countrymen  at  Capernaum,  foreseeing  more 
plainly  than  ever  the  immediate  issue  of  his  mission  in  his 
own  impending  death,  Jesus  Christ  turns  away  from  the 
multitude,  and,  followed  by  his  few  faithful  friends,  seeks 
retirement,  that  in  a  period  of  seclusion  he  may  give  them 
instruction  in  the  principles  of  his  kingdom — instruction 
by  which  they  may  be  guided  after  his  death.  The  period 
with  which  we  have  to  do  in  the  next  two  chapters  of  this 
series  is  this  period  of  seclusion.  "  If  he  goes  into  any  of 
the  cities,  he  still  endeavors  to  remain  unknown  ;  when  a 
deaf  and  dumb  man  is  brought  to  him,  he  takes  him  aside 
from  the  multitude  before  he  opens  his  ears  and  loosens 
his  tongue  ;  when,  in  the  city  of  Bethsaida,  a  blind  man  is 
brought  to  him,  it  is  not  till  he  has  led  him  outside  the  city 
walls  that  he  bids  him  see  ;  and  alike  upon  the  subjects  of 
his  healing  and  upon  his  disciples  he  enjoins  secrecy, 
though  for  the  most  part  seemingly  in  vain.  So  marked  is 
this  change  in  his  ministry,  so  evident  is  his  effort  during 
these  six  months  of  exile  to  secure  retirement  and  to  live 
unnoticed,  that  his  brethren  taunt  him  with  his  conceal- 
ment, and  dare  him  to  show  himself  openly  to  the  world  if 
he  be  indeed  the  Messiah  that  he  claims  to  be."  -^  To  some 
significant  incidents  in  this  period  of  seclusion  our  atten- 
tion is  especially  drawn  in  the  Scripture  lessons  suggested 
for  this  and  the  succeeding  week. 

From  Galilee  Jesus  first  retreats  to  the  coast  of  Tyre 
and  Sidon.  His  object  was  not  missionary  labor,  but  rest 
and  an  opportunity  for  quiet  conference  with  the  Twelve. 
His  aim  was  analogous  to  that  of  the  ministry  in  the  mod- 

^Mark  ix.,  30;  vii.,  33;  viii.,  22-36;  vii.,  36;  viii.,  26;  John  vii.,  2-5.     See 
Chapter  XXIII.  in  my  "'Jesus  of  Nazareth." 

82 


A    PERIOD    OF    SECLUSION  83 

ern  "  retreat."  But  his  fame  had  preceded  him,  and  he 
could  not  secure  the  seclusion  he  desired.-^  A  Syro-Phoeni- 
cian  woman  forced  her  way  into  the  Master's  presence 
and  implored  his  aid  for  her  suffering  daughter.  We  mis- 
read the  story  of  Christ's  life  by  denying  to  him  those 
flashes  of  humor,  that  incisive  but  delicate  irony,  that 
humanistic  spirit  which  belongs  to  all  the  greatest  moral 
teachers.  To  suppose  that  Jesus  in  the  spirit  of  his  own 
disciples  looked  iipon  this  woman — upon  any  child  of  God 
— as  a  dog  and  repulsed  her  contemptuously,  his  contempt 
vanquished  only  by  her  importunity,  is  to  do  singular  dis- 
honor to  his  name.  Christ  neither  intended  to  repel  this 
mother,  nor,  in  fact,  did  so.  He  interpreted  his  language 
by  the  tones  of  his  voice  and  the  expression  of  his  face. 
It  is  not  difficult  for  imagination  to  conceive  the  picture  : 
she  throwing  herself  at  his  feet  imploring  his  help;  the  dis- 
ciples with  their  narrow  Jewish  bigotry,  impossible  to  pen- 
etrate by  any  sympathy  for  a  heathen  woman,  no  matter 
what  her  distress;  and  his  ironical  rebuke  of  their  narrow- 
mindedness  by  his  seeming  participation  in  it,  a  seeming  be- 
neath which  her  quick  motherly  intuition  easily  saw  the  real 
divine  sympathy.  "  But,  my  woman," he  says,  "it  is  not  proper 
to  take  the  bread  from  these  children  "  (he  designates  them 
with  a  glance  or  with  a  gesture  as  he  speaks),  "  and  cast  it 
to  the  pet  dogs,  even  the  pet  dogs  of  the  household."  She 
catches  his  spirit  and  perceives  her  understanding  of  him 
by  her  response.  ''That  is  true,  Lord,"  she  says,  "for  the 
pet  dogs  eat  of  the  crumbs  which  fall  from  the  table  of 
their  masters.  There  is  enough  for  both,  and  they  feed 
from  that  which  the  children  cast  away  or  passed  by  in 
indifference."  ^  The  lesson  taught  to  his  disciples,  the  revela- 
tion of  the  catholicity  of  his  spirit  and  of  the  Gospel  made 
to  them  by  a  satire  which  even  thei-r  dull  hearts  could 
hardly  fail  to  apprehend,  he  grants  the  mother's  request, 
and  then,  all  hope  of  retirement  in  Phoenicia  being  taken 

^  Mark  vii.,  24. 

2  The  grounds  for  the  interpretation  which  I  here  give  to  the  incident  of  the 
Syro-Phoenician  woman  the  student  will  find  explained  in  full  in  my  Commen- 
tary on  Matthew,  Chapter  XV.  1  believe  it  to  be  borne  out,  not  only  by  the 
general  character  of  Christ,  but  by  a  careful  study  of  the  original  Greek.  I  pass 
by  the  feeding  of  the  four  thousand  because  its  significance  is  not  different  from 
that  of  the  feeding  of  the  five  thousand  heretofore  described.  There  is  some 
question  whether  there  are  not  two  accounts  of  the  same  incident,  though,  for 
the  reasons  stated  in  my  Commentary  on  Mark,  I  agree  with  Alt ord  in  thinking 
that  there  were  two  feedings. 


84  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

away,  goes  back  to  Galilee,  thence  to  depart  again  to  seek 
seclusion  anew  in  the  vicinity  of  Caesarea  Philippi. 

North  of  Galilee,  at  the  head  waters  of  the  Jordan,  about 
four  miles  east  of  Dan,  which  was  the  northernmost  town 
of  Palestine,  was  this  city  named  in  honor  of  Augustus 
Csesar  and  of  Herod  Philip,  the  tetrarch,  who  made  it  the 
site  of  his  villas  and  palaces.  Here  stood  side  by  side 
the  bust  of  Caesar  Augustus  and  the  shrine  of  Pan  ;  here 
side  by  side  were  maintained  the  two  most  common  forms 
of  idolatry,  the  worship  of  political  power  and  the  worship  of 
the  forces  of  nature  ;  here,  free  from  the  intrusion  of  public 
clamor  and  popular  adulation,  equally  distasteful  to  him, 
the  Master  found  the  opportunity  for  quiet  conference  with 
the  Twelve.  And  from  this  seclusion  he  set  his  face 
steadfastly  toward  Jerusalem,  toward  Gethsemane  and 
the  crucifixion,  to  complete  his  earthly  mission  by  his  pas- 
sion and  his  death. -^  Here  he  made  his  first  distinct 
declaration  of  his  Messiahship  to  his  disciples,  character- 
istically calling  forth  from  them  their  belief  in  him  as  the 
Messiah,  and  then  confirming  it.  "Whom  do  men  say  that 
I,  the  Son  of  man,  am  ?"  he  asks ;  and  they  said  :  ''  Some 
say  that  thou  art  John  the  Baptizer,  some  Elijah,  and  some 
Jeremiah,  or  one  of  the  prophets.''  He  said  unto  them  : 
*'  Whom  say  ye  that  I  am }"  One  can  imagine  the  moment 
of  hesitation  in  which  they  look  one  to  the  other  question- 
ingly,  and  then  the  boldest  of  them  utters  the  faith  which 
has  grown  into  their  hearts  so  gradually  that  they  are 
scarcely  conscious  of  it :  "  Thou  art  the  Messiah,  the  Son 
of  the  living  God." 

Christ's  confirmation  of  this  article  of  their  faith  appears 
to  me  to  have  been  strangely  misapprehended,  nor  have  I 
space  here  to  enter  into  the  grounds  for  the  different  inter- 
pretation which  indeed  I  can  only  briefly  suggest.^  Not 
on  Simon  as  an  individual  does  Christ  build  his  Church, 
nor  on  Simon  and  his  successors,  for  of  successors  he  gives 
no  hint  either  here  or  elsewhere  ;  nor  on  the  doctrine  of 
the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ,  for  this  common  Protestant 
interpretation    robs    the    play    upon    words    in    Christ's 

1  For  graphic  description  of  Csesarea  Philippi,  now  known  as  Paneas  or  Ba- 
nias.  see  George  Adam  Smith's  "  Holy  Land,"  pages  473-479. 

2  For  a  fuller  statement  of  this  interpretation,  and  the  grounds  for  it,  see  my 
"  Signs  of  Promise,"  Sermons  9  and  10,  and  my  Commentary  on  Matthew,  xvi., 
X3-19. 


A    PERIOD    OF    SECLUSION  85 

response  of  all  their  significance.  What  Christ  says  is 
this  :  "  By  this  living  faith  in  me  as  the  living  Messiah, 
you,  Simon,  impulsive,  changeable  like  a  wave  of  the  sea^ 
are  converted  into  Peter,  a  rock.  And  upon  this  rock,  this 
character  thus  divinely  transformed  by  a  renewing  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  through  faith  in  me  as  the  Messiah,  I  will 
build  my  Church.  That  Church  is  founded,  not  on  a  man, 
nor  on  a  hierarchical  succession,  nor  on  an  intellectual 
dogma,  but  on  a  transformation  of  character  through  an 
indwelling  Christ.^  To  every  soul  thus  transformed  by 
the  renewing  of  his  spirit  Christ  gives  the  key  of  the 
kingdom  of  heaven — not  a  key  to  let  men  into  a  future 
heaven,  still  less  a  key  to  Peter  as  a  porter,  giving 
him  power  to  receive  or  to  exclude  from  the  celestial 
city,  but  the  key  as  a  symbol  of  authority  in  the 
Christian  life,  the  key  of  God  upon  the  earth.  Not  au- 
thority to  loose  and  bind,  or  to  designate  who  shall  be 
loosed  or  bound,  in  heaven,  but  authority  to  loose  (that  is, 
permit)  and  bind  (that  is,  prohibit)  upon  the  earth — au- 
thority to  regulate  one's  own  conduct,  not  as  coerced  by 
laws  of  an  external  authority,  but  as  guided  and  inspired 
by  the  spirit  of  liberty  within.  This  power  of  the  keys, 
which  has  been  made  an  excuse  for  spiritual  despotism,  is 
really  a  Magna  Charta  of  liberty  in  the  kingdom  of  God 
for  all  the  disciples  of  Christ.  "  I  understand,  then,  the 
promise  of  the  keys  to  be  made  to  Peter  as  the  possessor 
of  a  living  faith  in  Jesus  as  the  divine  Messiah,  and 
through  him  to  all  who  by  a  like  faith  are  endued  with  a 
like  strength  of  character,  not  natural,  but  God-given,  and 
I  would  paraphrase  it  thus  :  To  my  disciples  I  will  give 
authority  in  their  spiritual  life  so  that  they  shall  no  longer 
be  bound  by  rules  and  regulations  like  those  of  the  Phari- 
sees or  of  the  Mosaic  code ;  but  whatsoever,  under  the 
inspiration  of  a  living  faith  in  me,  they  shall  prohibit  them- 
selves, God  will  prohibit,  and  whatsoever,  under  that  in- 
spiration, they  shall  permit  themselves,  God  will  permit ; 
for  they  shall  have  the  mind  of  the  Spirit." 

^See,  in  confirmation  of  this  view,  Peter's  own  interpretation  in  i  Pet.  ii.,4-6. 


CHAPTER   XXL— THE   TRANSFIGURATION 

Luke  ix.,  28-36;  Matt,  xvii.,  14-27 


It  is  not  until  Christ  has  been  rejected  by  the  common 
people,  and  not  until  his  immediate  disciples  have  recog- 
nized him  as  the  Messiah,  not  because  of  any  manifest 
glory  or  popular  acceptance,  but  despite  popular  rejec- 
tion, and  because  of  his  own  personal  character  and  benefi- 
cent work,  that  Christ  makes  that  revelation  of  this  secret 
mystery  of  his  life  afforded  by  the  Transfiguration.  It 
then  comes  in  as  the  outward  and  visible  confirmation  of  a 
faith  which  is  based  upon  a  spiritual  foundation  of  faith 
and  love. 

The  notion  that  the  story  of  the  Transfiguration  is  the 
story  of  a  dream  may  be  dismissed  without  much  argument 
at  the  outset.  If  it  was  dreamed  by  one  of  these  witnesses, 
and  afterwards  narrated  by  him,  it  is  hardly  credible 
that  the  narrative  would  have  been  received  against  the 
testimony  of  the  other  two ;  and  a  concurrent  dream  is  as 
much  out  of  the  order  of  nature  as  a  supernatural  visitation. 
Like  some  other  hypotheses  that  assume  the  honorable 
title  of  "rational,"  this  one  is  peculiarly  contrary  to  reason. 

If,  however,  we  accept  what  is  certainly  a  common  view 
of  the  spirit  world,  I  know  not  how  this  episode  can  be 
interpreted  at  all.  It  can  only  be  regarded  as  an  event 
wholly  miraculous  ;  equally  out  of  the  order  of  nature  and 
of  the  supernatural.  That  common  view  of  the  spirit  world 
is  nebulous  at  best,  but  it  may  be  briefly  stated  thus  : 
Death  is  a  sleep  ;  at  death  the  soul  goes  into  a  semi- 
conscious condition  and  lives  in  some  far  off  Lotus-land  of 
dreams  ;  the  body  waits  in  the  grave  the  summons  of  the 
last  trump ;  in  a  thousand  years  or  a  thousand  centuries, 
v/henever  time  shall  have  finished  its  cycle  and  the  end 
shall  have  come,  the  body  will  rise  from  its  resting-place 
and  become  that  soul's  future  habitation ;  the  scattered 
portions  of  human  bodies  taken  up  by  grass  and  grain  and 

86 


THE    TRANSFIGURATION  87 

incorporated  in  infinite  forms  of  vegetable  and  animal  life 
will  be  brought  together  by  the  command    of   God — for 
nothing  is   too  difficult  for  the  Almighty — and  then   the 
long-broken  current  of  life  will  begin  again. 
These  ashes,  too,  this  litde  dust, 

A  Fadier's  care  shall  keep, 
Till  the  last  angel  rise  and  break 
The  long  and  dreary  sleep. 

On  this  notion  of  death  and  resurrection  we  must  imag- 
ine that  Moses  and  Elijah  were  especially  called  from  long 
sleep  in  death  for  this  special  interview ;  what  became  of 
them  after  their  premature  resurrection,  whether  they 
waited  in  loneliness  for  their  companions  or  whether  they 
went  back  to  their  long  sleep,  I  shall  leave  those  to  guess 
who  adopt  a  hypothesis  so  crowded  with  difficulties — 
rational,  interpretative,  and  moral — as  this  heart-breaking 
and  wholly  unscriptural  hypothesis  seems  to  me  to  be. 

As  I  read  the  New  Testament,  there  is  to  the  believer 
no  break  in  the  continuity  of  life  ;  no  "  long  and  dreary 
sleep  ;"  no  waiting  for  a  future  and  far-off  resurrection  ; 
no  "  happy  land,  far,  far,  away ;"  no  further  use  for  this 
lame,  blind,  deaf,  ailing,  sick  body  after  it  is  laid  away  in 
the  grave  ;  no  conceivable  use  in  preserving  it  by  embalm- 
ing, or  stone  sarcophagus,  or  iron  casket,  or  closed  tomb. 
It  is  the  soldier's  tent ;  his  campaign  is  over  ;  he  is  at 
home  ;  and  the  sooner  it  is  made  over  into  some  new  and 
valuable  thing  the  better.  It  is  the  immigrant's  wagon  ;  he 
has  reached  his  destination  ;  the  wagon  has  served  its  pur- 
pose, but  its  journeys  have  come  to  an  end ;  knock  it  to 
pieces  and  turn  its  material  to  good  account.  Of  the 
resurrection  of  this  body,  corrupt,  decaying,  evanescent, 
the  Bible  gives  no  hint ;  on  the  contrary,  it  repudiates  it  in 
strongest  terms.  When  the  death-angel  appears  to  the 
disciple,  saying,  "  Follow  me,"  the  chains  fall  off  from  the 
long-fettered  soul ;  he  carries  not  a  link  of  them  away  to 
encumber  his  future  freedom.  Whether  Swedenborg's 
fancy  of  a  spiritual  body  is  true  I  know  not.  Having  no 
faith  in  him  as  a  prophet,  his  revelations  seem  to  me  but 
the  imaginings  of  a  fine  and  poetic  soul.  But,  true  or 
false,  the  resurrection  is  accomplished  when  life  is  ended, 
and  the  soul  and  the  breath  leave  the  body  forever  at  the 
same  moment.     Thank  God  it  is   so  !     Thank  God  my 


88  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

mind  is  not  to  be  forever  fettered  by  the  conditions 
imposed  upon  it  by  an  easily  wearied  brain,  nor  my  heart 
checked  in  its  aspirations  by  a  body  gross  and  sensuous 
and  earthy. 

As  little  authority  is  there  for  the  notion  of  the  "  happy 
land,  far,  far  away."  The  Bible  never  so  represents  it. 
The  heavenly  Jerusalem  is  a  holy  city  let  down  to  the 
earth.  Heaven  is  at  hand.  If  it  has  geographical  limits 
of  any  sort,  earth  is  not  beyond  them.  What  powers  of 
soul-flight  to  the  other  and  far-off  worlds  the  soul  may 
possess,  who  can  tell .?  What  explorations  it  may  make 
into  secrets  of  the  universe  into  which  telescope  and  spec- 
troscope pry  in  vain,  who  may  guess  ?  The  stars  may  be 
other  continents  whither  the  emancipated  wander,  as  here 
we  travel  through  foreign  countries  carrying  our  bodies 
like  heavy  and  cumbersome  baggage.  But  whatever  other 
lands  may  be  opened  to  the  winged  spirits,  the  earth  is  not 
closed  to  them.  Whatever  other  companionship  may  be 
theirs,  the  companionship  of  earth  is  not  denied  them. 
They  are  all  ministering  spirits  ;  we  may  live  and  walk  in 
the  midst  of  them.  If  our  ears  were  adjusted  to  such 
delicate  music,  we  might  hear  their  songs  ;  if  our  eyes  were 
not  so  gross  and  sensuous,  we  might  perceive  their  now 
invisible  forms.  When  the  prophet  touched  the  eyes  of 
the  young  man,  and  he  looked  up,  he  saw  the  horizon  full 
of  the  horses  and  chariots  of  the  Lord  encamped  around 
Elisha  ;  they  were  not  then  summoned  from  a  far-off  land 
for  his  protection.  When  Elisha  recalled  the  wandering 
spirit  of  the  boy  to  the  dead  body,  it  had  not  far  to  travel 
to  return  to  its  earthly  tent.  When  Christ  called  with  a  loud 
voice,  "  Lazarus,  come  forth  !"  the  spirit  was  within  hear- 
ing and  could  obey.  When  Christ  hung  on  the  cross,  with 
the  dying  thief  beside  him,  he  was  able  to  say,  "  This  day 
shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  Paradise."  No  long  interval  of 
weary  centuries  was  to  be  first  w^asted  in  useless  sleep.  When 
Paul,  imprisoned  at  Rome,  looked  forward  with  longing  to 
the  hour  of  his  liberation,  it  was  not  that  he  might  find 
Job's  couch,  "  w^here  the  wicked  cease  from  troubling  and 
the  weary  are  at  rest,"  but  that  he  might  ''  depart  and  be 
with  Christ,  which  is  far  better."  That  there  are  pas- 
sages in  the  Bible  which  seem  to  point  to  a  great  and  uni- 
versal resurrection   at  some  far-off  period,  I  frankly  con- 


THE    TRANSFIGURATION 


89 


cede  ;  but  that  this  is  its  general  teaching  I  vigorously  and 
earnestly  deny.  All  its  teaching  is  pictorial.  It  all  speaks 
of  that  which  to  us  is  incomprehensible.  Any  clear,  defi- 
nite, and  accurate  conception  of  the  spirit  world  is  impos- 
sible ;  but  the  picture  of  a  long  rest,  a  soul  living  unclad 
or  asleep,  or  waiting  in  some  reception-room  of  heaven  for 
its  habiliments,  presents  far  more  difficulties  to  the  rever- 
ent student  of  Scripture  than  the  view  which  holds  that 
the  Judgment  Day  has  already  dawned  ;  that  the  dead  are 
passing  in  a  continuous  procession  from  earth  to  God's 
judgment  bar  ;  that  death  and  the  resurrection  are  simul- 
taneous ;  that  the  separation  between  earth  and  heaven  is 
a  narrow  partition,  and  death  is  but  the  swinging  of  the 
door  ;  and  that  the  dead  are  living,  more  truly  living  than 
we,  and  living  often  close  at  hand  :  so  close  that  we  are 
surrounded  by  them  as  by  a  cloud  of  witnesses  ;  so  close 
that  the  evil  spirits  breathe  into  our  souls  pestiferous  im- 
aginations and  blasphemous  thoughts ;  so  close  that  we 
have  need  to  arm  ourselves  not  merely  against  flesh  and 
blood,  but  also  against  the  prince  of  the  power  of  the  air, 
against  wicked  spirits  in  high  places ;  so  close,  too,  that 
mothers  still  keep  watch  and  ward  over  their  children,  and 
the  friend  still  serves,  by  subtle  influences,  as  guide  and 
inspiration  of  his  friend.  Oh,  mother,  laying  down  at  last 
your  weary  burden,  and  only  too  glad  to  lay  it  down  but 
that  you  cannot  bear  to  be  separated  from  the  children 
whose  strength  is  so  small  and  whose  need  is  so  great, 
who  ever  told  you  that  you  are  to  be  separated  from  them  ? 
They  shall  be  separated  from  you  ;  but  you  shall  not  be 
separated  from  them. 

Accepting  this  conception  of  the  spirit  world — as  a  world 
all  about  us,  as  a  world  in  which  we  live,  as  a  world  from 
which  we  are  separated  only  by  our  own  dullness  of  sense 
and  heaviness  of  vision — the  story  of  the  Transfiguration 
ceases  to  be  a  strange  episode,  a  breaking  in  upon  nature 
and  the  supernatural ;  rather  it  will  seem  strange  that 
many  a  follower  of  Christ  has  not  known  a  like  experience 
of  communion  with  the  sainted  and  risen  dead. 

Christ  was  accustomed  to  retire  from  the  haunts  of  men, 
even  from  the  companionship  of  his  own  disciples,  and 
spend  all  night  in  prayer  among  the  hills  of  Galilee.  Of 
these   secret   and  sacred  communings   this    story  of   the 


90  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

Transfiguration  gives  us  our  only  glimpse.  These  nights 
of  prayer  were  nights  of  communion  ;  nights  in  which  the 
obscurity  of  sense  was  cleared  away,  and  the  half-enfran- 
chised soul  saw  and  communed  with  the  souls  that  were 
wholly  freed  from  the  dimness  and  darkness  of  the  flesh, 
and,  most  of  all,  with  the  Father  whom  no  eye  of  flesh  ever 
has  seen  or  ever  can  see.  And  on  the  one  occasion  when 
his  three  friends  were  permitted  to  share  his  place  of  prayer 
with  him,  they  caught  also  the  inspiration  of  his  spirit,  and 
beheld  two  of  the  cloud  of  witnesses  that  were  watching 
over  them — that  are  ever  watching  over  us. 

If,  however,  this  incident  thus  interpreted  affords  us  a 
new  sense  of  the  reality  and  the  presence  of  the  spirit 
world,  it  also  guards  us  against  going  out  of  the  activities 
of  an  earthly  existence  to  indulge  in  reveries  and  dreams 
concerning  the  invisible.  Their  presence  may  well  serve 
as  an  inspiration ;  their  ministry  may  be  real  and  helpful ; 
but  we  may  not  turn  aside  from  present  duty  for  converse 
with  them.  If  ever  any  of  us  are  inclined  to  listen  to  the 
voices  of  the  voiceless  dead,  the  one  voice  which  speaks  to 
us  out  of  the  cloud — and  the  only  voice — is,  "  This  is  my 
beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased ;  hear  ye  him." 
If  we  are  ever  inclined  to  turn  our  longing  eyes  toward  this 
impalpable  world,  and  seek  for  some  materialized  form  of 
the  invisible  dead,  we  may  well  remember  that  the  glimpse 
of  the  lawgiver  and  the  prophet  was  but  a  glimpse,  and 
that  when  the  disciples'  eyes  were  open  they  saw  no  one 
save  Jesus  only.  If  we  are  inclined  to  abide  on  the  Mount 
of  Vision,  and  substitute  spiritual  ecstasy  for  practical  duty, 
we  shall  do  well  to  recall  the  throng  that  waited  at  the  foot 
of  the  Mount  for  Jesus's  return,  bringing  power  of  healing 
for  the  demoniac  boy,  and  to  remember  that  the  poor  we 
have  always  with  us,  and  that  the  hours  of  inspiration  are 
meant  to  equip  us  with  a  larger  sympathy,  a  broader  human 
love,  and  a  profounder  curative  and  healing  faith  as  a 
preparation  for  the  work  of  casting  the  devil  out  of  those 
who  abide  in  the  valley. 


CHAPTER    XXIL— JESUS    IN    JERUSALEM 
John  vii.,   1-52;  John  viii.,  1-59 


In  studying  the  life  of  Christ,  and  in  comparing  the  dis- 
courses in  John's  Gospel  with  those  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels, 
the  reader  must  remember  that  many  of  the  discourses  re- 
ported in  John  were  delivered  in  Jerusalem,  while  those  in 
Matthew  and  Mark  were  for  the  most  part  delivered  in 
Galilee,  to  which  Luke  adds  some  which  were  delivered  in 
Perea.  Comparinoj  Palestine  with  Europe  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  Galilee  may  be  said  to  be  the  Germany, 
Judea  the  Italy,  of  the  Holy  Land.  In  Galilee  Christ  was 
surrounded  with  a  simple-hearted  folk  who  were  inclined 
to  welcome  much  of  his  message.  In  Jerusalem  he  was 
surrounded  by  the  adherents  of  a  hierarchy  who  were  bent 
on  his  destruction.  In  Galilee  his  auditors  believed  in 
laws  of  righteousness,  and  welcomed  a  rabbi  who  taught 
them  that  to  obey  is  better  than  sacrifice.  In  Jerusalem 
his  auditors  were  people  whose  commercial  and  social  as 
well  as  religious  life  was  bound  up  with  the  Temple,  and 
to  whom  ceremonial  law  seemed  far  more  important  than 
the  Ten  Commandments. 

His  hostile  critics  deny  his  right  to  teach  because  he  is 
not  a  graduate ;  they  attempt  to  arrest  him  for  teaching 
without  authority,  but  his  moral  power  overawes  the  officers 
and  he  is  not  taken  ;  they  scoff  at  his  teaching  because  he 
is  a  Galilean ;  they  endeavor  to  bring  him  into  collision 
with  the  law  of  Moses  by  bringing  in  a  woman  convicted 
of  adultery  to  condemn  or  to  acquit ;  they  interrupt  him 
in  his  teaching  with  continual  questionings,  and  when  they 
find  themselves  unable  to  outwit  him,  they  follow  question- 
ing with  abuse,  and  abuse  with  proffered  violence.  All 
this  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  in  interpreting  the  discourses 
recorded  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  chapters  of  John,  of 
which  here  I  can  give  but  the  briefest  epitome. 

The  law  of  Moses  is  primarily  a  law  of  righteousness. 

91 


92  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

Men  who  are  murderers  at  heart  are  not  obeying  that  law 
because  they  are  rigid  ceremonialists.     They  think  they 
will  know  the   Messiah  when  he  comes,  but  they  neither 
know  him,  nor  his  origin,  nor  his  destiny.     He  comes  to 
bring  to  humanity  the  spirit  of  the  divine  life,  the  spirit  of 
obedience,  which  is  religion,  and  that  spirit  they  will  not 
receive.     He  who  does  receive  it  walks  in  the  light  because 
the  light  is  in  himself.     He  who  has  this  light  in  himself 
will  recognize  in  Jesus  the  Messiah,  and  will  receive  the 
witness  which  the  Father  has  given  of  his  Messiahship. 
He  who  has  this  spirit  will  be  emancipated  from   bondage 
— bondage  to  sin,  bondage  to  the  letter  of  the  law.     It  is 
to  bring  this  emancipation  about  by  bringing  this  illumi- 
nation that  the  Son  has  come  to  the  world.     The  true  chil- 
dren of  Abraham  are  those  who  possess  Abraham's  spirit. 
They  who  do  the  deeds  of  malice  and  hate  are  not  children 
of  Abraham,  but  children  of  the  devil.     They  who  possess 
this  spirit  of  light  and  life  are  immortal ;  they  cannot  die. 
They  see  with  vision  what  Abraham  saw  by  faith — God 
revealing  himself  to  humanity,  for  Jesus  the  Messiah  is  the 
consummation  of  that  long  historic  revelation  which  began 
with  the  voice  that  called  Abraham  out  of  heathenism. 

So  these  discourses,  which  I  have  treated  here  as  one, 
the  object  of  which  is  to  teach  the  liberty  and  life  of  the 
spirit  to  a  people  who  are  in  bondage  to  the  letter,  reach 
their  consummation  in  the  enigmatical  but  sublime  decla- 
ration, a  declaration  which  binds  the  Old  and  the  New 
Testament  together  in  one  book  of  revelation,  "  Before 
Abraham  was,  I  am." 


The  Life  of  Christ 


CHAPTER  XXIII.— CHRIST'S    MINISTRY   IN 
JERUSALEM,    CONTINUED 

John  ix.,   1-41  ;  x.,  1-42 


«  (For  comments  on  Lesson  25,  see  next  chapter) 

The  chronology  of  this  portion  of  Christ's  life  is  involved 
in  obscurity.  I  believe,  however,  that  the  ministry  re- 
ported in  John  vii.,  10 — x.,  39,  was  one  continuous  ministry 
of  about  three  months'  duration  in  Jerusalem,  immediately 
after  which  Christ  departed  to  the  region  beyond  Jordan 
(John  X.,  40-42),  the  record  of  his  ministry  there  being 
given  alone  by  Luke.  In  this  chapter,  therefore,  I  do  not 
follow  the  order  of  The  Bible  Study  Union  Lessons.  (See 
next  chapter.) 

Christ's  Judean  ministry  was  one  of  continuous  storm. 
Twice  he  was  mobbed,  once  an  attempt  was  made  to  arrest 
him,  more  than  once  secret  plans  for  his  assassination  were 
formed.  It  is  doubtful  whether  any  of  the  evangelists  except 
John  were  with  Jesus  during  this  time ;  at  all  events,  it  is  he 
alone  who  gives  us  an  account  of  it.  In  our  last  chapter  we 
saw  the  mob  gathering  with  stones  in  their  hands  to  stone 
Jesus.  He  hid  himself,  it  is  said,  and  escaped.  In  this 
chapter  we  come  to  another  illustration  of  the  same  spirit 
of  enmity,  though  here  it  takes  the  form  of  the  judicial  trial. 

Passing  along  the  street  one  day,  he  sees  a  man  blind 
from  his  birth  ;  anoints  his  eyes  with  clay  and  spittle, 
which  in  ancient  times  were  believed  to  possess  curative 
properties,  and  bids  him  go,  wash  in  the  pool  of  Siloam. 
He  goes,  and  finds  his  sight  restored.  The  healing  creates 
great  public  interest.  It  is  brought  to  the  attention  of  the 
Sanhedrim ;  they  seize  upon  the  fact  that  the  healing  was 
done  upon  the  Sabbath  day,  and  a  judicial  investigation 
follows.  The  parents  appear,  and,  when  summoned  before 
the  court,  evade  its   questioning,  for  it  has  already  been 

93 


94  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

determined  that  whoever  acknowledges  Christ  as  the  Mes- 
siah shall  be  excommunicated ;  and,  while  it  is  doubtful 
whether  this  sentence  practically  involved  all  the  penalties  ^ 
implied  in  the  Talmud,  and  actually  involved  in  excommu- 
nication by  the  Church  of  Rome  at  a  later  day,  it  is  certain 
that  the  excommunicated  was  practically  cut  off  from  social 
intercourse  and  largely  from  all  those  commercial  enter- 
prises which  involved  association  with  others. 

The  man  himself,  summoned  and  put  upon  oath,  at  first 
himself  avoids  any  issue  with  the  court.  Whether  the  man 
who  cured  him  is  an  impostor  or  not,  he  will  not  under- 
take to  say.  But  he  repeats  unhesitatingly  the  story  of 
his  cure  ;  then,  aroused  to  anger,  taunts  the  court,  stands 
bravely  up  for  his  convictions,  affirms  his  faith  that  the 
man  who  cured  him  is  no  impostor,  but  truly  a  man  of 
God ;  and  suffers  the  penalty  in  the  dreaded  ban  of  ex- 
communication pronounced  against  him.  One  cannot  but 
wish  to  know  what  later  became  of  him.  So  far  as  the 
account  indicates,  he  was  left  by  Christ  to  bear  the  penalty 
of  his  fidelity  to  his  convictions — one  of  the  earliest,  if  not 
the  very  earliest,  of  the  Christian  martyrs  who  suffered 
persecution  for  Christ's  sake.  If  we  believe,  as  I  do,  that 
we  have  in  this  chapter  the  record  of  an  eye-witness,  it  is 
peculiarly  valuable  because  it  gives  an  account  of  the  only 
one  of  Christ's  miracles  which  was  subjected  to  a  judicial 
or  quasi  judicial  investigation  ;  and,  as  the  result  of  that 
investigation,  the  reality  of  the  cure  could  not  be  denied, 
and  the  only  way  in  which  a  hostile  court  could  break  its 
moral  effect  was  by  driving  into  social  exile  the  witness 
whose  testimony  could  not  be  contradicted. 

The  healing  of  the  blind  man  and  the  judicial  investiga- 
tion of  the  miracle  were  followed  by  a  double  parable  in 
which  a  familiar  figure  drawn  from  the  Old  Testament 
prophets  was  made  first  to  indie  ite  the  attitude  of  Christ's 
disciples,  then  to  indicate  his  own  nature  and  office. 
"Whoever,"  says  Christ,  "enters  into  my  fold,  becomes  a 
shepherd  of  the  sheep,"  Each  shepherd  has  his  own  sheep, 
each  disciple  his  own  pupils,  who  will  hear  only  his  voice, 
respond  only  to  his  influence.  But  he  th^t  would  be  a 
prophet  of  God  must  first  himself  come  to  God  by  Christ, 

^  For  description  of  the  effect  of  the  anathema,  as  stated  in  the  Talmud,  see 
Edersheim's  "  Life  of  Jesus,"'  Vol.  11.,  p.  183. 


CHRIST  S    MINISTRY    IN    JERUSALEM CONTINUED         95 

first  enter  into  the  fold  through  the  one  only  door.  Who- 
soever puts  himself  before  Christ,  whosoever  claims  prece- 
dence before  him,  or  sets  him  one  side  as  the  Pharisees 
did,  are  thieves  and  robbers.  They  rob  men  of  the  life 
which  Jesus  Christ  has  come  to  bestow.^ 

Then  Christ  makes  a  new  application  of  the  same  figure. 
He  is  himself  the  supreme  Shepherd,  the  Good  Shepherd 
who  gave  his  life  for  the  sheep.  He  lays  that  life  down  at 
will ;  he  will  at  will  take  that  life  up  again.  Bringing  these 
two  parables  together,  as  the  Master  does,  they  teach  at  once 
the  supreme  authority  of  Christ,  and  what  has  been  well 
called  the  "  liberty  of  prophesying"  of  all  Christ's  disciples. 

This  parabolic  teaching  is  speedily  followed  by  another 
discourse  concerning  Himself,  the  significance  of  which 
neither  was  nor  well  could  be  misunderstood.  A  hostile 
crowd  surround  him  and  demand  that  he  say  plainly  whether 
he  is  the  Messiah  or  not.  He  does  not  give  a  categori- 
cal answer  to  that  question  ;  but  he  does  answer  plainly 
what  is  his  mission  and  what  his  power.  He  gives  to 
his  followers  eternal  life,  and  no  man  can  rob  them  of  it ; 
because  the  Father  is  greater  than  all,  and  he  and  his 
Father  are  one — one,  clearly  (otherwise  there  is  no  signifi- 
cance in  the  argument),  in  power  and  authority,  not  merely 
in  will  or  desire.  So,  clearly,  the  mob  understand  him,  for 
they  take  up  stones  to  stone  him  for  blasphemy.  With 
that  marvelous  presence  of  his  he  overawes  and  halts 
them  ;  cites  to  them  their  own  Scriptures,  that  the  prophets 
of  God  are  sons  of  God,  and  asks  them  a  question  which 
they  cannot  answer,  why  they  charge  him  wiih  blasphemy 
because  he  has  claimed  to  be  the  Son  of  God.  If — this 
is  the  gist  of  the  argument — he  to  whom  the  Spirit  of  God 
comes  is  made  a  partaker  of  the  divine  nature  and  a  child 
of  God,  then  he  who  is  not  of  this  world,  but  is  sent  into 
it  by  the  Fither  to  reveal  the  Father  to  the  world,  cannot 
be  guilty  of  blasphemy  in  calling  himself  a  son  of  God. 

Again  the  mob  seek  to  lay  hold  of  him  ;  again  he  es- 
capes from  their  hands,  and  turns  his  back  upon  Jerusalem 
as  he  has  already  turned  his  back  upon  Galilee.  He  has 
still  a  ministry  to  complete  in  the  region  beyond  Jordan, 
and  then  the  time  will  be  ripe  for  his  passion  and  death. 

1  For  the  reason  of  this  interpretation  of  the  parable  I  must  refer  the  reader  to 
my  Commentary  on  John. 


CHAPTER   XXIV.— VARIOUS    INCIDENTS    AND 

TEACHINGS 

Luke  ix.,  5  [-62;  x.,  1-24 


The  ministry  of  Christ  may  be  roughly  divided  into  four 
sections  :  the  first,  his  ministry  in  Galilee,  recorded  by 
Matthew  and  Mark  most  fully,  though  also  in  part  by 
Luke  and  John  ;  the  second,  his  ministry  in  Judea,  occu- 
pying about  three  months  and  recorded  only  by  John  ; 
the  third,  his  ministry  in  Perea,  or  the  region  beyond  the 
Jordan,  referred  to  in  John  x.,  40-42— another  period  of  a 
little  over  three  months,  from  some  time  in  December  to 
the  first  of  April,  the  teachings  and  incidents  in  which  are 
recorded  almost  exclusively  by  Luke;  and,  finally,  the 
passion  and  death  in  Jerusalem,  recorded  by  all  four  of  the 
Evangelists,  Matthew  giving  the  fullest  account  of  the 
public  teachings,  and  John  the  only  account  of  the  private 
teachings  to  the  Twelve.^ 

In  connection  with  his  report  of  the  Perean  ministry, 
Luke  adds  some  incidents  which  evidently  belong  else- 
where, but  which  in  The  Bible  Study  Union  Lessons  are 
put  where  Luke  has  put  them. 

It  is  as  Jesus  is  going  up  to  his  Passion  in  Jerusalem 
(Luke  ix.,  51)  that  a  Samaritan  village  refused  him  that 
hospitahty  to  refuse  which  in  the  Orient  is  a  distinct  in- 
sult. In  the  spirit  of  the  Hebrew  Psalmist,  who  counts 
the  enemies  of  God  his  enemies,  and  hates  them  with  a 
perfect  hatred,  John  would  call  down  fire  from  heaven  to 
destroy  the  inhospitable  Samaritans.  But  the  spirit  of 
Christ  is  not  that  of  the  Hebrew  Psalmist.  He  would 
have  his  disciples  love  with  a  perfect  love,  not  only  those 
who  hate  them,  but  those  even  who  treat  despitefully  their 
Master. 

It  is  possibly  on  this  journey,  but  more  probably  during 

1  Of  course  Christ  was  in  Judea  on  other  occasions,  notably  at  the  very  out- 
set ot  his  ministry,  and  before  it  had  really  commenced  as  that  of  a  public 
prophet  and  teacher.    John  ii.,  13— iv.,  42.    See  Chapters  VII.  and  VIII. 

96 


VARIOUS    INCIDENTS    AND    TEACHINGS  97 

his  ministry  in  Galilee,  that  three  would-be  disciples  offer 
themselves  to  him.  The  first,  self-confident  and  impetu- 
ous, declares  himself  quite  ready  to  follow  wherever  Christ 
would  lead,  but  apparently  halts  and  draws  back  when  he 
learns  the  poverty  of  the  Master  and  the  self-sacrifice 
involved  in  following  him.  One  cannot  be  a  follower  of 
Christ  if  he  refuses  the  cross.  A  second,  promising  but 
procrastinating,  will  follow  Christ  after  he  has  buried  his 
father.  But  Christ  has  no  faith  in  the  promise  of  a  man 
who  postpones  discipleship  to  a  future  day — no  matter 
what  may  be  the  apparent  reason  for  the  postponement. 
A  third,  irresolute  and  hesitating,  finds  himself  drawn  in 
two  directions,  towards  the  Master  and  back  towards  his 
home.  But  he  who  halts  between  two  purposes — he  who, 
having  put  his  hand  to  the  plow,  even  looks  back,  is  not 
ready  for  discipleship.  There  is  no  passage  in  the  New 
Testament  more  significant  than  this  passage  in  which 
Christ  is  portrayed  as  rejecting  applicants  for  admission 
to  his  army. 

Possibly  in  Jerusalem,  more  probably  in  the  region  about 
or  beyond  the  Jordan,  he  utters  his  parable  of  the  Good 
Samaritan  This  parable  has  been  so  effective  as  to  cre- 
ate in  our  minds  entirely  new  associations  with  this  word 
Samaritan.  To  understand  its  original  significance  we 
must  remember  that  the  Samaritan  was  both  an  apostate 
and  a  heretic.  He  belonged  to  a  mongrel  race ;  he  had 
proved  himself  traitorous  to  Israel  in  more  than  one  time 
of  war  ;  he  had  separated  himself  from  Israel  and  the  tem- 
ple worship — was  both  heretic  and  schismatic.  All  the 
prejudice  felt  in  our  time  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  against  the 
negro  or  the  Indian,  by  the  Northern  loyalist  against  the 
Southern  secessionist,  and  by  the  Protestant  against  the 
Jew  or  the  Roman  Catholic,  was  felt  by  the  Israelite  against 
the  Samaritan.  Christ's  direct  and  immediate  teaching  is 
that  practical  goodness  is  better  than  sound  doctrine, 
national  fellowship,  or  purity  of  blood.  He  teaches  this, 
it  is  to  be  observed,  not  by  an  argument,  but  by  an  appeal 
to  the  instinctive  sentiment  of  mankind,  and  thus  indirectly 
he  teaches  that  those  instincts  and  sentiments  may  be 
trusted,  and  that  no  philosophy  can  be  sound  which  does 
not  take  account  of  and  harmonize  with  them. 

Just  outside  of  Jerusalem  is  the  village  of  Bethlehem, 


98  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

where  reside  dear  friends  of  Jesus — Mary  and  Martha  and 
their  brother  Lazarus.  We  shall  come  again  upon  them 
in  Christ's  life.  Luke  records  one  simple  and  significant 
incident  connected  with  this  home.  Christ,  wearied,  we 
may  assume,  with  the  perpetual  battling  in  Jerusalem — 
for  this  incident  properly  belongs  in  his  Judean  ministry — 
retreats  from  the  threatening  and  hostile  city  to  the  seclu- 
sion of  this  home  for  rest.  Both  the  sisters  love  him,  and 
each  seeks  to  serve  him  after  her  peculiar  fashion  :  one 
by  bustling  about  with  great  assiduity  to  get  a  supper 
worthy  of  the  Rabbi ;  the  other  by  sitting  quietly  at  his 
feet,  bringing  her  questions  and  drinking  in  his  instruc- 
tions. The  teacher,  wearied  with  dull  disciples  and  a  hos- 
tile mob,  wearied  with  endeavoring  to  compel  the  one  to 
listen  and  to  enable  the  other  to  understand,  does  not  care 
for  the  elaborate  supper — a  very  simple  repast  would  serve 
him  quite  as  well — but  finds  a  refreshment  which  every 
true  teacher  can  understand  in  the  presence  of  one  appre- 
ciative, sympathetic,  and  responsive  listener. 

The  commission  of  the  seventy  almost  unquestionably 
belongs  to  the  Perean  ministry.  Their  mission  is  much 
like  that  of  the  Twelve  appointed  in  Galilee  ;  but  they 
wtre  seventy  instead  of  twelve,  for  the  territory  was  larger 
and  the  time  shorter.  They  were  not  forbidden  from 
entering  into  any  Gentile  city,  for  in  Perea  Gentile  and 
Jew  were  associated  together  ii  the  same  cities;  their 
ministry  was  not  confined  to  the  unwalled  towns,  and  no 
instruction  respecting  persecution  was  given  to  them,  as 
serious  persecution  was  not  to  be  expected  until  after  their 
mission  had  come  to  an  end.  Otherwise  the  spirit,  and  to 
some  extent  the  letter,  of  their  instructions  is  the  same  as 
that  of  the  commission  to  the  Twelve. 


CHAPTER  XXV.— THE  PEREAN  MINISTRY 
Luke,  chapters  xi.  and  xii. 


Palestine  in  the  time  of  Christ  was  divided  geographi- 
cally into  four  sections  :  Galilee,  on  the  north,  which  we 
may  call  the  New  England  of  Palestine  ;  Samaria,  in  the 
center,  occupied  by  a  mongrel  population,  to  which  Christ 
did  not  to  any  extent  minister ;  Judea,  on  the  south,  under 
the  control  of  the  hierarchy,  centered  at  Jerusalem ;  and 
Perea,  so  called  from  the  Greek  v^ox6l  pera  (beyond),  that 
is,  the  region  beyond  the  Jordan.  This  is  a  wild  and 
romantic  region  even  now,  but  little  visited  by  travelers  to 
the  Holy  Land,  who  practically  regard  the  Jordan  as  its 
eastern  boundary. 

But  in  Christ's  time  this  was  a  populous  and  prosperous 
district,  its  hills  famous  for  pasturage  and  the  cattle  for 
their  size  and  fatness.  Along  the  river  Jordan  the  ruins 
of  127  villages  have  been  counted,  and  the  flourishing 
cities  in  its  northern  portion  gave  to  that  section  the  name 
of  Decapolis  (Ten  Cities).  The  population  of  Perea  was 
not  homogeneous.  Israelites  and  Gentiles  were  here  inter- 
mixed, living  side  by  side  in  the  same  towns  and  villages. 
In  this  semi-pagan  community  the  sheep  of  Israel  were 
truly  wandering  sheep — in  the  estimation  of  the  haughty 
Judean,  lost  sheep.  To  this  era  of  Christ's  ministry 
belong  most  of  the  teachings  contained  in  Luke,  chapters 
x.-xvi.  It  is  here,  probably,  that  in  the  parable  of  the 
Good  Samaritan  he  rebukes  pride  of  caste  and  race,  and  in 
the  parable  of  the  Rich  Fool  and  of  Lazarus  the  pride  of 
wealth  ;  here  that  he  teaches,  in  the  three  matchless  para- 
bles of  the  fifteenth  chapter,  that  the  grace  of  God  goes 
out  after  the  wandering  and  the  lost ;  here,  attendant  upon 
the  feast  of  the  wealthy  Pharisee,  he  rebukes  social  dis- 
play and  urges  a  true  Christian  hospitality  ;  and  here,  as 
in  Galilee  and  in  Jerusalem,  but  more  than  in  Galilee  and 

99' 


lOO  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

less  than  in  Jerusalem,  he  has  occasion  to  denounce  the 
pride  and  hypocrisy  of  Pharisaism. 

Our  next  three  chapters  will  be  taken  up  with  this  Pe- 
rean  ministry,  to  which  also  belongs  the  commission  of  the 
seventy,  referred  to  in  the  last  chapter. 

Prayer  has  been  taught  by  the  Pharisees  and  by  John 
the  Baptist  as  a  ritual.  In  the  teaching  of  the  former,  its 
value  depended  upon  the  accuracy  with  which  the  pre- 
scribed rite  was  followed.  The  simple-minded  disciples, 
imagining  their  Master's  vigil  to  be  like  those  of  the  Phar- 
isees, and  like  those  of  the  Christian  monks  at  a  later 
epoch — repetitions  of  prescribed  formularies — asked  him 
to  teach  them  what  those  formularies  are.  He  repUes,  in 
substance,  that  to  pray  acceptably  is  to  carry  to  the  Father 
the  desires  which  are  actually  in  our  heart,  and  he  groups 
together  in  one  incomparable  prayer  the  common  desires 
and  petitions  of  humanity.  We  are  not  to  regard  this, 
however,  as  the  Lord's  ideal  of  devotion.  That  is  fur- 
nished us  by  the  intercessory  prayer  which  John  has  report- 
ed as  uttered  by  the  Master  at  the  close  of  his  last  con- 
ference with  his  disciples.     (John,  chap,  xvii.) 

Prayer  is  to  be  measured,  not  by  the  forms  of  the  words 
used,  but  by  the  reality  and  intensity  of  the  desire.  This 
is  the  significance  of  importunity,  which  is  worse  than 
meaningless  when  it  is  not  the  natural  expression  of  genu- 
ine eagerness.  The  ground  and  argument  for  prayer  are 
found  in  our  own  intercourse  with  one  another.  Any 
conception  of  God  and  his  government  which  regards  him 
as  so  bound  and  hampered  by  his  own  laws,  or  even  by 
his  own  foreknowledge,  that  he  cannot  feel  and  respond  to 
the  heartfelt  desires  of  his  children,  is  false.  Man  is  made 
in  God's  image,  and  if  we  are  able  to  commune  one  with 
another,  and  affect  one  another  by  our  spiritual  life,  much 
more  may  we  commune  with  the  Everlasting  Father,  and 
have  influence  with  him. 

He  meets  in  Perea  the  same  hostile  elements  which  he 
has  met  in  Galilee,  though  here  they  are  more  intense  and 
more  hostile.  He  does  not  yield  to  them  ;  on  the  con- 
trary, he  declares  that  Nineveh  and  the  Queen  of  Sheba 
will  rise  up  in  judgment  against  the  nation  of  Israel  and 
condemn  them  because  their  privilege  has  been  greater 
than  that  of  the  age  to  which  Jonah  and  that  of  the  age  to 


THE    PEREAN    MINISTRY  1 01 

which  Solomon  spoke.  He  denounces  the  Pharisaism 
which  is  scrupulous  respecting  externalities  and  indiffer- 
ent regarding  the  spirit ;  which  pretends  to  revere  the 
prophets  of  the  past,  yet  continues  to  exemplify  the  spirit 
of  those  who  maltreated  the  prophets.  He  discerns  the 
secret  which  they  hide  behind  pietistic  garments,  and 
shames  them  by  disclosing  their  covetousness.  He  points 
out  to  the  people  the  folly  of  covetousness  :  the  man  who 
thinks  only  how  he  can  accumulate,  and  not  how  he  can 
use,  he  condemns.  Men  admire  what  they  call  this  man's 
success,  which  they  measure  by  the  greatness  of  his  gran- 
aries, but  God  calls  him  fool.  And  He  repeats  in  slightly 
different  forms  and  slightly  different  connections  the  same 
teachings  which  he  has  given  to  the  people  in  Galilee — the 
value  and  the  blessedness  of  the  filial  trust  in  a  heavenly 
Father's  care — a  trust  which  rests  upon  and  cannot  exist 
without  simple,  single-hearted,  earnest  consecration. 


CHAPTER  XXVI.— THE  PEREAN    MINISTRY, 
CONTINUED 

Luke,  chapters  xiii.  and  xiv. 


In  grouping  together  the  teachings  and  incidents  in 
the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  chapters  of  Luke,  the  editor 
of  The  Bible  Study  Union  Lessons  follows  the  evangelist. 
It  is  not  by  any  means  certain,  however,  that  these  frag- 
ments of  history  belong  chronologically  in  the  order  indi- 
cated by  Luke  ;  nor  even  that  they  all  belong  in  the  Perean 
ministry,  though  that  is  probable.  Without  attaching  im- 
portance to  the  order,  I  content  myself  with  pointing  out 
certain  general  lessons  inculcated  in  these  passages.  For 
a  certain  moral  co-relation  may  be  found  in  them,  and  in 
this  fact  is  an  indication  that  they  belong  to  the  same 
epoch  in  Christ's  history. 

In  Perea,  then,  as  in  Galilee  and  in  Judea,  Christ  meets 
the  enemy  of  spiritual  religion,  Pharisaism  or  legalism.  It 
shows  itself  in  different  forms,  for  it  has  not  only  many 
masks  but  many  aspects ;  but  it  is  at  heart  ever  and 
always  the  same. 

It  sometimes  appears  as  a  self-righteous  spirit,  and  inter- 
prets with  unshrinking  audacity  the  events  of  current  his- 
tory as  "  special  providences,'"  but  always  so  as  to  flatter  its 
own  pride.  Wicked  Galileans  !  cries  the  Perean  Pharisee, 
or  they  would  not  have  been  slain  by  Herod's  sword. 
Wicked  Judeans  !  or  they  would  not  have  been  killed  by 
the  falling  of  Siloam's  tower.  And  the  silent  conclusion 
is,  Pious  Pereans !  who  have  not  been  adjudged  worthy  of 
such  a  fate.  We  may  be  sure  that  the  Galilean  Pharisee 
had  a  different  interpretation  for  the  first  disaster,  and  the 
Judean  Pharisee  for  the  second.  But  Christ  puts  all  under 
the  same  condemnation— the  condemnation  of  fruitless 
lives.  The  life  that  is  not  fruitful  in  love  awaits  destruc- 
tion.    Why  should  it  cumber  the  ground  ? 

In  Perea,  as  in  Galilee  and  Judea,  the  Sabbath  question, 
as  it  is  sometimes  called,  the  ceremonial  question  as  I 

102 


THE    PEREAN    MINISTRY CONTINUED  103 

should  prefer  to  call  it,  is  presented.  Christ  does  not 
wait  for  his  adversaries  to  raise  it ;  he  raises  it  himself. 
He  is  teaching  in  the  Synagogue  on  the  Sabbath,  and  pub- 
licly, one  might  almost  say  ostentatiously,  heals  a  paralytic. 
This  calls  down  on  him  the  rebuke  of  the  ruler  of  the 
Synagogue,  who  argues,  in  true  Pharisaic  fashion,  that  the 
healing  was  quite  unnecessary.  Christ  replies  with  the 
unanswerable  argument  that  to  loose  a  paralytic  from  her 
bonds  is  a  diviner  work  than  to  loose  an  ox  or  an 
ass  from  his  stall  to  water  him.  No  day  and  no  place 
is  too  sacred  for  works  of  humanity.  "  The  Sabbath  was 
made  for  man,  not  man  for  the  Sabbath." 

The  Pharisee  is  continually  trying  to  escape  the  questions 
of  practical  religion  by  substituting  for  them  questions  of 
abstract  theology.  The  scholasticism  of  modern  times  and 
of  the  Middle  Ages  is  only  a  survival  of  a  rather  milder 
form  of  the  same  spirit  in  the  first  century.  The  Pharisee 
does  not  ask,  What  shall  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  still  less, 
What  can  I  do  to  save  others  ?  but,  Are  there  few  that  be 
saved  ?  What  are  our  most  modern  questions  about  the 
elect  and  the  heathen  but  a  new  form  of  this  question  ? 
And  to  the  theoretical  question  Christ  always  gives  a 
practical  answer.  Few  ?  That  is  my  business,  not  yours. 
For  you,  the  business  is  to  put  your  whole  energy  on  your 
own  life  and  duty ;  it  calls  for  it  all ;  and  do  it  now,  because 
when  once  the  Master  of  the  house  is  risen  up,  and  hath 
shut  to  the  door,  you  may  seek  to  enter  in,  and  find  it  too 
late.  I  should  like  to  believe  that  the  door  of  hope  eternally 
stands  open.  But  I  confess  myself  unable  to  reconcile  my 
wish  with  this  teaching  of  the  Master. 

The  Pharisee  is  always  a  coward  ;  always  trying  to 
accomplish  by  indirect  means  what  he  has  not  the  manli- 
ness to  attempt  openly  and  avowedly.  It  is  exactly  like 
the  Pharisee,  modern  and  ancient,  to  come  persuasively  to 
an  unwelcome  teacher  and  counsel  him  to  depart — quietly. 
Herod  is  after  him,  and  will  kill  him.  Anything  will  do 
for  a  Herod  that  will  serve  to  get  rid  of  a  too  plain  and 
outspoken  teacher.  "  Go  tell  that  fox !"  Ah  !  he  saw 
that  they  were  at  one  with  Herod,  had  perhaps  gotten 
their  message  from  him,  and  were  as  foxy  as  their  master. 
Keen  was  the  word,  and  it  cut  deep.  Sometimes  a  word  is 
needed  which  has  such  an  edge  to  it. 


I04  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

The  Pharisee  is  very  susceptible  to  public  opinion.  He 
delights  to  honor  the  preacher  whom  the  public  is  honor- 
ing. He  leaves  the  prophet  to  fight  his  battle  alone ; 
when  he  wins,  comes  out  to  honor  him  ;  when  he  fails, 
comes  out  to  curse  him.  Just  now  Christ  is  popular  ;  so 
one  of  our  Pharisees  makes  him  a  great  supper.  And,  by 
the  way,  observe  that  Christ  did  not  object  to  social 
festivity  on  the  Sabbath  day.  But  what  a  miserable  pre- 
tense at  honoring  Christ  this  is ! — which  neglects  his  laws, 
disregards  his  instructions,  repudiates  his  spirit,  and  asks 
him  to  a  feast  where  guest  clamors  and  pushes  against 
guest  for  the  most  honored  seat.  Something  suggestive 
of  this  in  some  modern  churches,  sometimes — is  there  not  ? 
For  eighteen  centuries  Christ's  ideal  of  a  social  party  has 
been  before  the  world.  And  still  in  Christendom  a  Christ- 
patterned  party,  though  not  unknown,  is  rare.  For  the  most 
part  we  invite  our  own  set — those  who  have  invited  us  and 
to  whom  we  owe  something,  or  who  can  invite  us  in  turn. 

It  is  very  characteristic  of  Pharisaism  to  be  very  devout 
— in  prospect.  Just  now,  with  Christ  homeless  and  a 
wanderer,  there  is  no  great  blessing  in  attaching  one's  self 
too  closely  to  his  fortunes  ;  but  one  may,  with  prudence, 
with  hands  clasped  and  eyes  upraised,  enjoy  great  antici- 
pations of  blessed  communion  with  him  in  heaven.  Re- 
ligion is  always  admirable  in  the  martyrdoms  of  the  past 
and  in  the  glories  of  the  future — but  just  now  !  excuse  me  : 
I  have  my  property  to  attend  to,  and  I  my  business,  and  I 
my  wife.  But — there  is  no  glory  in  the  future  for  him  who 
does  not  count  the  cost  and  pay  the  cost  in  the  present : 
who  does  not  count  loyalty  to  the  Master  and  his  cause 
more  than  property  or  business  or  wife  herself.  The  spirit 
of  self-sacrifice  is  the  savor  of  a  Christian  character. 
Without  it  he  who  calls  himself  a  Christiaa  is  but  a  Phari- 
see— salt  without  savor,  not  fit  even  for  the  dunghill. 

Strange  is  the  contrast  of  this  scorn  for  the  Pharisee, 
with  his  self-righteous  conceit,  and  his  scholastic  theologiz- 
ings,  and  his  foxy  cunning,  and  his  thinly  disguised  self- 
honor,  and  his  pious  benediction  on  goodness  and  facile 
self-excuse  for  not  practicing  it — strange  the  contrast  with 
the  next  chapter's  tenderness  and  compassion  for  the  wan- 
dering and  the  lost,  who  may  yet,  perhaps,  be  reclaimed 
even  in  and  from  their  despair. 


CHAPTER   XXVII.— FIVE   PARABLES 

Luke,  chapters  xv.  and  xvi. 


The  student  of  the  five  parables  suggested  for  our  con- 
sideration in  this  course  in  the  Life  of  Christ  will  not 
expect,  in  this  course  of  study,  to  make  a  careful  and  pains- 
taking study  of  any  one  of  these  parables.  All  that  he 
can  do  will  be  to  collate  and  compare  them  and  see  what 
general  teaching  is  inculcated,  what  system  of  grace  and 
of  admonition,  by  the  group,  taking  them  in  their  entirety. 

So  taking  them,  the  first  lesson  which  must  impress 
itself  upon  us  is  the  meaning  which  Christ  attaches  to  the 
word  "lost."  The  sheep  in  the  first  parable,  the  piece  of 
silver  in  the  second,  the  son  in  the  third,  are  lost ; — yet  they 
are  all  found.  A  lost  race  is  not  a  race  beyond  hope  of 
recovery  ;  a  lost  soul  is  not  a  soul  beyond  the  possibility 
of  redemption.  Perhaps  the  best  definition  of  lost  from 
the  Christ  point  of  view  is  "  not  yet  found."  Christ  is 
coming  to  seek  and  to  save  that  which  is  lost ;  and  that 
which  is  lost  has  not  changed  its  essential  nature.  The 
wandering  sheep  is  still  a  sheep — not  a  wolf ;  the  piece 
of  silver  has  still  the  impress  of  the  king  upon  it,  obscure 
but  not  destroyed.  The  boy  is  still  the  father's  son, 
though  an  erring  and  a  sinful  son.  The  lost  man  has 
broken  away  from  the  brotherhood,  as  the  sheep  from  the 
fold ;  has  gone  away  from  God,  and  is  no  more  of  value  to 
Him,  as  the  piece  of  silver  which  the  owner  cannot  find. 
The  lost  son  is  lost  to  his  brother  and  his  father,  but  also 
lost  to  himself,  and  because  no  longer  a  true  son,  no  longer 
a  true  man.  And  yet,  if  this  sheep  is  brought  back  he  will 
fit  in  with  the  fold ;  if  this  money  is  recovered  it  will  be  of 
value ;  if  this  son  returns  to  his  father  he  will  be  clothed 
and  in  his  right  mind.  This  is  the  threefold  meaning  of 
these  two  words  "  lost  "  and  "found,"  ever  to  be  borne  in 
mind  by  us  in  our  endeavor  to  understand  the  mystery  of 
redemption.     Sin  is  not  natural,  it  is  contra-natural.     The 


Io6  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

natural  place  of  the  soul  is  in  fellowship  with  God,  the 
natural  lite  of  the  soul  is  the  life  of  divine  service. 

Bearing  this  great  and  fundamental  truth  in  mind,  we 
may  find  in  a  comparison  of  the  first  three  parables  some 
suggestion  of  further  truths.  The  first  two  may  be  called 
Calvinistic,  for  they  represent  God  coming  after  the  sin- 
ner ;  the  third  may  be  called  Arminian,  for  it  represents 
the  sinner  coming  after  God.  Thus  the  three  must  be 
taken  together  in  order  to  understand  the  change  wrought- 
in  redemption.  In  fact,  the  soul  never  comes  back  to  God 
except  as  God  comes  after  the  wandering  soul.  Again, 
looked  at  as  a  representation  of  human  duty,  the  first  two 
represent  the  duty  of  the  Church  to  seek  after  the  lost — 
the  third,  the  duty  of  the  Church  to  welcome  the  returning 
sinner  with  a  full,  free,  and  unreproachful  pardon.  To 
disbelieve  in  the  possible  restoration  of  the  most  outcast 
is  to  disbelieve  the  gospel  of  these  three  parables.  To 
shut  the  door  of  hope  upon  the  vagrant  is  to  play  the  part 
of  the  elder  brother — to  be  a  Pharisee. 

There  are  some  other  suggestions  in  the  comparison  of 
these  three  parables,  less  vital  and  important.  In  the  first, 
the  shepherd  loses  one  sheep  out  of  a  hundred  ;  in  the 
second,  the  woman  one  piece  of  sih^er  out  of  ten  ;  in  the 
third,  the  father  one  son  of  the  two.  *'  Thus,"  says  Trench, 
*'  we  find  ourselves  moving  in  ever  narrower  and  so  in- 
tenser  circles  of  hope  and  fear  and  love,  drawing  in  each 
successive  parable  nearer  to  the  innermost  center  and 
heart  of  the  truth."  We  may  perhaps  also  see  successive 
grades  and  depths  of  sin  represented.  In  the  wandering 
sheep,  the  sin  of  mere  careless  ignorance  and  indifference  ; 
in  the  lost  coin,  rolled  away  into  some  dark  and  noisome 
corner  of  the  room,  the  sin  of  separation  from  God,  isola- 
tion, and  consequent  vice  ;  in  the  son,  deliberately  turn- 
ing his  back  upon  his  father  and  demanding  his  portion 
to  spend  according  to  his  own  self-will,  the  sin  of  willful 
disobedience,  lawlessness,  open  revolt. 

Still  continuing  this  comparison,  we  must  see  in  all 
three  parables  the  lesson,  taught  in  different  forms,  of  the 
possibility  of  recovery  and  therefore  the  reasonableness  of 
hope,  no  matter  what  the  error,  the  selfishness,  or  the 
willful  revolt  may  have  been.  In  all,  too,  the  joyfulness  of 
religion  ;  the  truth  that  the  Gospel  of  Christ  comes,  not  as 


THE    FIVE    PARABLES 


107 


an  added  burden  or  an  added  law,  but  as  a  new  hope  and 
a  new  inspiration  ;  the  truth  that  the  joy  is  not  for  the  vir- 
tuous and  innocent  alone,  but  for  the  repentant  also  ;  the 
further  truth  that  as  by  their  sin  they  have  added  to  the 
sorrow  of  heaven  and  earth,  so  by  their  penitence  they 
can  add  to  the  joy  and  songfulness  of  God's  universe. 

If  we  now  turn  to  the  other  parables,  great  as  is  the 
contrast  between  these  of  warning  and  those  of  grace,  yet 
there  is  in  them  a  common  teaching.  They  are  urited  in 
one  system  of  doctrine  by  the  one  word  "  love."  The 
three  gospels  of  grace  have  for  their  theme  the  love  of 
God  ;  the  two  gospels  of  warning,  love  in  man.  The  first 
three  set  forth  love  as  the  ground  of  our  hope ;  the  second 
two  set  forth  love  as  the  nature  of  duty.  The  first  three 
appeal  to  the  highest  sentiments,  the  last  two  to  prudential 
considerations.  The  first  three  are  parables  of  the  gos- 
pel ;  the  last  two,  parables  of  the  law.  The  unjust  steward, 
from  motives  of  worldly  shrewdness,  gives  his  lord's  estate 
with  a  free  hand  to  the  tenants  under  him,  and  so,  by 
means  of  the  unrighteous  mammon,  makes  friends  for  him- 
self among  the  tenants.  If  this  is  shrewd  policy  for  the 
steward,  who  is  dispensing  his  lord's  estate  without  his 
lord's  authority,  how  much  more  is  it  shrewd  policy  for  the 
steward  to  whom  the  lord  has  intrusted  that  estate  that 
he  may  distribute  it  among  his  tenants  !  This  is  the  lesson 
of  the  first  parable;  and  the  second  is  like  unto  it.  This 
often  misunderstood  parable  of  the  Rich  Man  and  Lazarus 
is  meant  to  "take  us,  as  it  were,  by  storm,  and  once  for 
all,  out  of  the  customary  and  earthly  way  of  regarding  life, 
and  awaken  us,  once  for  all,  to  serious,  to  religious  thought," 
by  its  dramatic  representation  of  the  general  worthlessness 
of  that  which,  from  the  worldly  point  of  view,  we  are  wont 
to  value  most  highly.  In  dealing  with  the  imagery  of  the 
parable,  borrowed  from  and  adapted  to  the  then  current 
and  popular  conceptions  of  the  future  life,  we  have  too 
often  forgotten  the  central  and  indisputable  lesson  afforded 
by  the  contrast  between  the  envied  rich  man,  faring  sump- 
tuously every  day,  whose  only  sin  is  his  indifference  to  the 
wants  of  his  fellow-men,  and  the  last  word  of  whose  biog- 
raphy is  that  he  "was  buried,"  and  the  poor  man,  despised 
and  outcast,  who  hardly  had  a  burial  awarded  to  him, 
save  as  it  was  necessary  to  rid  the  street  of  his  corpse, 


Io8  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

but  who  was  borne  by  the  angels  to  Abraham's  bosom. 
The  fuller  and  more  detailed  lessons  implied,  if  not 
explicitly  taught,  in  these  parables  must  be  left  for  a  more 
minute  study  of  them.  Here  we  must  content  ourselves 
with  summing  all  up  in  these  two  sentences : 

The  sole  hope  of  man  is  in  God's  love. 

The  whole  duty  of  man  is  to  show  Godlike  love  to  his 
fellow-men. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII.— THE  RESURRECTION  OF 

LAZARUS 

John  xi.,  1-54 


The  significance  of  John's  account  of  the  resurrection  of 
Lazarus  as  an  evidence  of  Christ's  divine  mission  and 
authority  has  always  been  felt  and  acknowledged  alike  by 
the  believer  and  the  unbeliever  in  historic  Christianity. 
Thus,  Spinoza  declared  that,  "could  he  have  persuaded 
himself  of  the  truth  of  the  raising  of  Lazarus,  he  would  have 
broken  in  pieces  his  whole  system,  and  would  have  embraced 
without  repugnance  the  ordinary  faith  of  Christians."  In 
considering  this  story,  therefore,  the  student  must  first 
consider,  though  necessarily  briefly,  the  reasons  for  believ- 
ing that  the  narrative  is  that  of  an  eye-witness,  and  next 
the  character  and  credibility  of  the  eye-witness.  There 
are  really  but  three  alternative  hypotheses  respecting  this 
narrative  :  (i)  That  it  grew  up  as  a  myth  out  of  some  slight 
pre-existing  material,  assuming  its  present  form  in  the  second 
or  third  century,  and  embodied  with  other  material  in  a 
gospel  edited  from  pre-existing  material  at  that  date.  (2) 
That  the  death  and  resurrection  of  Lazarus  were  apparent, 
not  real ;  the  resurrection  being  a  contrivance  of  the  friends 
of  Jesus  to  give  ^<r/^/ to  his  anticipated  entry  into  Jerusalem, 
and  that  either  he  himself  was  deceived,  or  lent  himself  to 
the  deception  in  a  moment  of  fanatical  enthusiasm.  (3) 
That  the  events  occurred  as  narrated  by  John  ;  in  which 
case  we  are  left  to  draw  our  own  conclusions  from  them, 
for — a  fact  to  be  considered  more  fully  presently — John 
draws  no  conclusions  himself. 

The  second  of  these  hypotheses  we  do  not  think  it  neces- 
sary for  us  here  to  discuss.  It  is,  indeed,  suggested  by 
Renan,  and  defended  by  him  with  what  will  strike  the 
Anglo-Saxon  reader  as  characteristic  Parisian  morality. 
That  Jesus  either  lent  himself  to  a  deception  or  that  he 
was  himself  deluded  by  a  skillfully  contrived  scheme  of 

109 


no  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

his  friends — a  scheme  in  which  Mary  and  Martha  must 
have  had  a  principal  part — I  may  assume  will  seem  entirely 
incredible  to  readers  of  these  papers.  The  first  hypothesis, 
when  advocated  by  Strauss,  seemed  not  wholly  unreason- 
able. Fifty  years  ago  it  was  doubtful  whether  the  Fourth 
Gospel  was  written  in  its  present  form  before  the  third 
century.  It  is  true  that  even  then  the  weight  of  external 
evidence  was  in  favor  of  an  earlier  date,  but  the  question 
was  hotly  debated,  and  it  was  truly  deba'able.  Recent 
discoveries,  however,  have  settled  that  question  beyond 
the  possibility  of  a  doubt.  The  lately  discovered  manu- 
script of  the  Gospels^  carries  the  composition  of  the 
Fourth  Gospel  back  to  as  early  a  date  as  150.  Tatian's 
"  Diatessaron,"  the  earliest  Harmony  of  the  Gospels,  has 
been  brought  to  light  within  the  last  few  years.  This 
harmony  was  published  as  early  as  150,  and  was  pre- 
pared by  Tatian,  who  was  born  about  the  year  100.  It  is 
not  crtdible  that  the  Gospel  came  into  existence  in  his  own 
lifetime,  and  yet  was  accepted  by  him  as  John's  Gospel. 
The  discovery  and  publication  of  the  "  Diatessaron  "  thus 
makes  it  reasonably  certain  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  was 
written  and  published  before  the  beginning  of  the  second 
century — that  is,  within  seventy  years  after  the  death 
of  Christ,  and  during  the  lifetime,  or  certainly  within  a 
very  few  yeirs  after  the  death,  of  the  Apostle  John.  If, 
then,  we  are  to  suppose  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  was  not 
written  by  John,  or  at  his  dictation,  or  by  some  one 
embx)dying  his  narratives  and  reports,  we  must  suppose 
that  already  in  John's  lifetime  there  had  risen  a  man  of 
rare  mystical  genius  who  was  able  to  palm  off  upon  the 
Christian  Church  as  John's  Gospel  a  narrative  with  the 
composition  of  which  John  had  nothing  to  do,  and  that 
this  rare  mystical  genius  has  so  absolutely  perished  from 
history  as  to  leave  no  trace  behind.  This  seems  to  me  an 
incredible  hypothesis.  I  think  it  is  quite  safe  to  say  that 
now  all  external  evidence  is  in  favor  of  the  belief  that  the 
Fourth  Gospel  was  written  by  the  Apostle  John.  The 
only  argument  against  such  authorship  is  the  supposed 
incongruity  between  that  Gospel  and  the  Apocalypse,  an 
incongruity  which  I  believe  can  readily  be  accounted  for 
if  we  suppose  that  the  Apocalypse  was  written  while  John 

1  For  an  account  of  this  see  The  Outlook  for  December  15, 1894. 


THE    RESURRECTION    OF    LAZARUS  III 

Still  possessed  the  narrow  and  intense  Hebrew  character, 
while  the  Gospel  was  written  after  age,  experience,  and 
the  teachings  of  life  had  rendered  him  more  catholic,  and 
had  given  him  a  truer  conception  of  Christ's  mission  and 
character. 

If,  then,  we  assume  that  John  wrote  this  narrative,  we  . 
have  in  it  the  testimony  of  an  eye-witness  to  certain  facts. 
Whether  John  was  critical  or  not  critical,  whether  he  was 
superstitious  or  rational,  whether  he  was  scientific  or 
unscientific,  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  credibility  of  his 
narrative.  It  would  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with  his  con- 
clusions from  the  narrative,  but  he  draws  no  conclusions. 
It  would  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with  his  opinions  respect- 
ing the  narrative,  but  he  expresses  no  opinions.  He  does 
not  even  say  that  any  miracle  was  wrought,  or  that  a  d^-ad 
man  was  raised  from  the  dead.  He  simply  tells  his  readers 
what  he  saw  and  heard,  and  leaves  them  to  draw  their  own 
conclusions.  "  He  was  with  Jesus  beyond  Jordan  ;  word 
came  to  them  that  Lazarus  was  sick  ;  Jesus  remained  where 
he  was  two  da}  s  ;  then  he  told  the  disciples  that  Lazarus 
was  dead  ;  when  th^y  reached  Bethany  they  found  a  scene 
of  mourning  ;  the  friends  had  come,  according  to  Jewish 
custom,  to  console  the  sister's  family  ;  both  sisters  stated 
impliedly  and  reproachfully  that  Lazarus  was  dead  ;  when 
they  arrived  at  the  grave,  one  of  them  said  that  he  had 
been  dead  four  days,  and  that  corruption — though  this 
apparently  was  only  her  presumption — had  already  com- 
menced. Christ  directed  the  stone  to  be  rolled  away, 
commanded  in  a  loud  voice,  '  Lazarus,  come  forth,' and  he 
came  forth,  bound  in  his  grave-clothes.  A  scientific  com- 
mission could  not  have  reported  the  facts  with  more  abso- 
lute impartiality.  The  writer  expresses  no  opinion  what^ 
ever  respecting  the  occurrence.  This  is  not  the  method 
of  an  idealist  who  has  invented  the  occurrence  for  the  pur- 
pose of  glorifying  his  Master,  or  of  a  dogmatist  who  has 
written  it  to  prove  a  doctrine ;  it  is  the  language  of  a  pre- 
eminently honest,  fair-minded,  and  impartial  witness.  And 
upon  this  narrative  the  great  mass  of  readers  and  students 
have  come  to  but  one  conclusion — that  to  which  both  friend 
and  foe  came  at  the  time — that  it  was  a  genuine  resurrec- 
tion of  the  dead,  a  great  and  notable  miracle."  ^ 

1  Quoted  from  my  Commentary  on  John,  Chapter  XI. 


112  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST. 

There  are  three  accounts  of  resurrection  from  the  dead 
wrought  by  Christ.  The  first  is  that  of  the  daughter  of 
J  irus,  who  had  just  died  as  Christ  was  approaching  the 
house.  The  second  is  that  of  the  son  of  the  widow  of 
Nain,  who  was  being  borne  to  his  burial.  The  third  is 
that  of  Lazarus,  who  had  been  dead  for  four  days.  The 
first  mi^ht  perhaps  be  explained  away  by  supposing  that 
the  girl  had  fallen  into  a  faint.  E/tn  the  second  might  be 
regarded  as  a  case  of  suspended  aaimation.  But  the  third 
is  inexplicable  upon  any  so-called  naturalistic  hypothesis. 
If  one  supposes,  as  many  apparently  do,  that  death  is  really 
the  cessation  of  existence,  and  thit  there  is  no  personal 
life  beyond  the  grave,  these  stories  of  resurrection  must 
necessarily  seem  incredible.  But  the  question,  If  a  man 
die,  shall  he  live  again  ?  is  precisely  the  question  on  which 
the  New  Testament,  with  its  accounts  of  resurrection, 
throws  a  great  flood  of  light.  To  suppose  that  he  cannot 
live  again  is  a  purely  gratuitous  assumption.  Let  us,  on 
the  contrary,  suppose  that  deaih  is  simply  the  separation 
of  the  spirit  from  the  body,  that  the  spirit  is  not  remote, 
or,  at  least,  not  necessarily  remote,  from  its  previous  habi- 
tation, then  there  is  nothing  incredible  in  supposing  that 
the  spirit  may  return  again  to  the  body  which  it  has  left, 
and,  if  the  body  has  not  already  begun  to  disintegrate, 
may  reanimate  the  body. 

I  have  left  myself  no  spa*ce  to  consider  here  the  spiritual 
significance  of  this  wonderful  narrative.  It  must  suffice 
to  say,  in  a  sentence,  that  he  who  believes  in  the  resurrec- 
tion narrative  of  the  New  Testament  will  believe  -ivith  the 
poet — 

All  souls  are  Thine : 

We  must  not  say 
^  That  those  are  dead  who  pass  away  ; 

From  this  our  world  of  flesh  set  free, 

We  know  them  living  unto  Thee. 


CHAPTER   XXrX.— SUNDRY    INCIDENTS    AND 
TEACHINGS 

Luke  xvii.,  11-19;  xviii.,  1-14;  Mark  x.,  2-16 


The  dates  of  the  incidents  and  instructions  which  the 
author  of  The  Bible  Study  Union  Lessons  has  grouped  to- 
gether for  our  study  to-day  are  very  uncertain.  It  is  prob- 
able, indeed  I  think  indubitable,  that  the  instructions 
respecting  the  end  of  the  world  contained  in  the  close  of 
the  seventeenth  chapter  of  Luke  are  to  be  identified  with 
those  given  by  Christ  in  Jerusalem  during  the  Passion, 
and  more  f  uliy  repeated  in  Matthew,  chapter  xxiv.  The  two 
parables  respecting  prayer,  that  of  the  unjust  judge  and 
that  of  the  Pharisee  and  the  publican,  may  belong  at  any 
time  in  Christ's  miu'stry,  but  as  they  are  narrated  only  by 
Luke,  and  only  Luke  gives  any  considerable  account  of 
the  Perean  ministry,  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that 
they  belong  in  that  epoch.  The  instructions  respecting 
divorce  and  those  respecting  little  children  are  also  gen- 
erally attributed  to  the  same  time  and  place.  The  only 
fact  throwing  any  lioht  on  the  occasion  of  the  incident 
respecting  the  ten  lepers  is  in  the  statement  that  it  occurred 
as  Jesus  was  going  to  Jerusalem  and  passing  along  the 
borders  of  Samaria  and  Galilee— that  is,  from  the  west  to 
the  east,  toward  the  Jordan,  a  route,  in  going  to  Jerusalem 
from  Galilee,  frequently  taken  by  the  Jews  for  the  purp^ 
of  avoiding  Samaria.  ^ 

Whtn  a  leper  was  cured,  before  he  could  be  restored  to 
society  he  was  required  to  show  himself  to  the  priest,  make 
an  offering,  and  be  officially  pronounced  clean.  Thus 
Chrisi's  command  to  the  lepers  implied  a  promise  of  cure; 
and  their  acceptance  of  the  command  was  an  indication 
of  remarkable  trust  in  his  word.  I  do  not  think  that  we 
are  to  suppose  that  the  nine  were  wholly  ungrateful  for  the 
cure  which  was  wrought  in  them.  They  were  commanded 
by  the  Jewish  law  to  present  themselves  to  the  priest,  and  , 

113 


114  THE    LIFE   OF   CHRIST 

this  command  had  been  reinforced  by  the  word  of  Christ. 
Literal  obedience  required  that  they  should  proceed  at 
once  to  Jerusalem  without  delay  and  without  turning  back. 
Moreover,  they  may  not  unnaturally  have  thought  that  there 
was  some  hazard  of  losing  the  cure  if  they  did  not  proceed 
to  the  priest.  This  would  not  have  been  a  very  reasonable 
fear,  but  superstition  is  not  reasonable.  The  contrast  be- 
tween the  one  leper  who  returned  and  the  nine  who  did 
not  is  that  between  the  love  which  disregards  the  letter  of 
the  law  in  order  to  manifest  gratitude,  and  the  obedience 
which  adheres  to  the  ritual  but  disregards  the  impulses  of 
love.  The  Jews  adhered  to  the  law  and  forgot  their  bene- 
factor ;  the  Samaritan  returned  to  thank  the  benefactor, 
and  for  the  time  forgot  the  law ;  and  Christ  commended 
the  latter. 

As  in  the  parable  of  the  neighbor  coming  at  midnight 
to  his  friend's  door  and  asking  for  food,  and  again  in  the 
parable  of  the  unjust  steward  (Luke  xi.,  1-13  ;  xvi.,  1-8), 
Christ  illustrates  the  accessibility  of  God  to  prayer  by  a 
strange  contrast.  Is  prayer  of  any  real  use  .?  Is  it  only  a 
kind  of  spiritual  gymnastics  by  which  we  exercise  our- 
selves .?  This  question  has  been  often  repeated,  and  the 
most  orthodox  divines  have  sometimes  taught,  or  seemed 
to  teach,  that  prayer  cannot  really  influence  God.  Thus 
Professor  Allen,  in  his  life  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  says  of 
that  great  divine  :  "  He  had  already  put  himself  on  record 
to  the  effect  that  the  object  of  prayer  is  not  to  change 
God's  will,  but  suitably  to  affect  our  own  hearts  and  so 
prepare  us  to  receive  the  blessings  we  ask."  A  similar  view 
of  prayer  will  be  found  presented  at  very  considerable 
length  and  urged  with  considerable  eloquence  in  one  of 
^eodore  Parker's  sermons.  Now,  Christ's  parable  re- 
^^d  to  this  philosophy  by  a  striking  illustration.  We  are 
able  to  affect  one  another ;  not  merely  by  giving  new 
information,  throwing  new  light,  urging  new  and  before 
unrecognized  considerations,  but  by  the  direct  influence  of 
soul  on  soul.  The  intensity  of  desire  itself  influences.  It 
influences  even  the  most  obdurate  and  hard-hearted.  That 
is  not  a  true  philosophy  which  refuses  to  take  account  of 
the  actual  facts  of  life,  and  it  is  an  actual  fact  of  life  that 
spirit  influences  spirit  and  the  desire  of  one  soul  moves 
the  will  of  another.     If  so  in  human  relations,  why  not 


SUNDRY    INCIDENTS    AND    TEACHINGS  II5 

also  and  much  more  in  the  relationship  between  the  human 
soul  and  God  ? 

The  kind  of  character  which  draws  near  to  God,  the 
kind  of  desire  that  has  influence  with  him,  is  illustrated 
in  the  other  parable.  The  Pharisee  of  this  parable  is  by 
no  means  a  bad  man.  He  would  represent  pretty  well  a 
reasonably  high  standard  of  the  religious  life  as  it  is  held 
to-diy.  His  life  is  conformed  to  the  moral  law.  He  is 
scrupulous  in  his  observance  of  religious  rites,  and  he 
gives  liberally  to  the  support  of  the  Cnurch.  But  he  is 
satisfied  with  himself,  and  does  not  really  desire  anything 
of  God,  unless  it  be  God's  approbation,  still  further  to 
inflate  his  self-conceit.  And  he  does  not  draw  so  near  to 
God  as  the  outcast,  ashamed  of  himself,  standing  afar  off, 
and  feeling  a  great  need  of  divine  mercy. 

There  is  no  place  here  in  a  paragraph  to  treat  the  diffi- 
cult and  perplexing  subject  of  divorce  and  Christ's  instruc- 
tions respecting  it.  I  can  only  remind  my  readers  that  it 
is  always  a  mistake  to  treat  Christ's  instructions  as  if  they 
were  statute  laws.  They  are  the  expression  of  great  prin- 
ciples, and  still  more  of  a  divine  spirit.  In  the  time  of 
Christ,  both  in  Palestine  and  in  Rome,  the  husband  might 
dismiss  his  wife  without  any  trial,  as  with  us  one  may  dis- 
miss a  domestic.  Moses  only  provided  that  he  should 
give  her  a  statement  of  the  reason  why  she  was  dismissed, 
that  she  might  not  suffer  under  unjust  suspicions.  I  do 
not  affirm  that  if  Christ  were  living  in  our  day  he  would 
recognize  the  right  of  society,  by  regular  judicial  proceed- 
ings, to  decree  a  divorce  for  any  other  ground  than  that 
of  adultery,  but  it  is  not  clear  that  he  might  not  do  so. 
Only  by  implication  can  any  rules  for  incorporation  in 
civil  legislation  be  deduced  from  Christ's  instructions  here, 
which  are  addressed  to  the  individual  under  a  very  different 
civilization  than  our  own.  But  the  duty  for  the  individual 
is  plain.  It  is  always  that  of  patience,  gentleness,  for- 
bearance, long-suffering.  The  rushing  into  separation  as 
a  quick  and  easy  escape  from  connubial  infelicity  is  clearly 
against  the  spirit  of  Christ's  teaching. 

It  is  clearly  impossible,  also,  to  go  at  any  length  into 
an  exposition  of  the  passage  of  Christ's  blessing  little 
children.  I  cannot  see  that  it  throws  any  light  on  infant 
baptism,  though  the  propriety  of  infant  baptism  has  some- 


Il6  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

times  been  deduced  from  it.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
seems  clearly  to  teach  that  little  children  belong  in  Christ's 
kingdom,  irrespective  of  any  parental  faith,  and  certainly 
irrespective  of  any  act  of  parental  consecration.  For  it  is 
not  stated  that  the  children  whom  Christ  blessed  were 
brought  by  their  parents,  much  less  were  blessed  for  their 
parents'  sake.  The  little  child  is  God's  by  reason  of  his 
birth  and  his  childhood.  Our  sin  is  the  greater  if,  by  our 
false  teaching  or  our  evil  example,  we  lead  him  away  from 
God,  or  interpose  any  obstacle  between  him  and  God. 


CHAPTER    XXX.— THE   LAST   JOURNEY   TO 
JERUSALEM 

Mark  x.,  17-45;  Luke  xviii.,  18-34 


The  earthly  career  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  is  now  drawing 
to  its  tragical  close.  He  has  preached  the  Gospel  in  Gali- 
lee, and  the  twelve  disciples  have  carried  the  message  of 
the  kingdom  as  its  heralds  to  all  the  smaller  villages;  but 
Galilee,  though  at  times  it  seemed  to  enthusiastically  re- 
ceive its  Prophet,  had  no  inclination  for  a  Gospel  so  catho- 
lic as  to  include  in  its  blessings  the  whole  world,  and  so 
spiritual  as  to  seek  its  results  only  through  self-sacrifice. 
By  a  sudden  change  of  popular  feeling,  by  no  means  un- 
common in  history,  the  people  had  passed  from  endeavor- 
ing to  crown  Jesus  as  their  king  to  abandoning  him  when 
he  spoke  of  sacrifice  in  the  synagogue  at  Capernaum.  He 
had  preached  the  Gospel  in  Judea,  so  far  as  we  have  any 
record,  chiefly,  if  not  exclusively,  in  its  capital.  Here  his 
disciples  could  render  him  no  aid.  There  is,  indeed,  little 
indication  that  the  twelve  Apostles  were  even  habitually 
with  him.  John  alone  has  given  any  extended  report  of 
this  period  of  his  ministry — John,  whose  fidelity  and  quiet 
courage  no  peril  was  able  to  daunt.  Rejected  by  Jeru- 
salem, he  had  preached  the  Gospel  in  Perea— the  region 
beyond  Jordan.  Here  seventy  apostles,  commissioned  for 
the  purpose,  had  carried  the  message  of  the  kingdom 
throughout  this  larger  district,  with  its  scattered  and  di- 
verse populace.  Here,  too,  he  was  listened  to  with  inter- 
est, but  not  accepted  as  the  Messiah.  The  time  of  instruc- 
tion had  now  come  substantially  to  its  close.  Jesus, 
knowing  full  well  the  fate  that  awaited  him,  set  his  face, 
as  one  of  the  evangelists  has  it,  steadfastly  toward  Jeru- 
salem. His  disciples  followed  him,  afraid  and  amazed.^ 
They  believed,  what  was,  indeed,  true,  that  he  was  going 
to  Jerusalem  to  fulfill  the  last  act  of  preparation  and  receive 

1  The  incident  in  Luke  ix.,  51,  is  not  there  placed  in  its  chronological  order. 

117 


Il8  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

his  coronation.  It  is  true  that  Christ  told  them,  in  per- 
fectly  explicit  terms,  that  he  would  be  delivered  to  the 
Gentiles,  insulted,  abused,  crucified;  but  this  they  could 
not  believe.  Christ  was  a  perpetual  enigma  to  his  most 
intimate  friends.  They  could  not  and  did  not  understand 
him.  When  he  spoke  parables,  they  understood  him  liter- 
ally ;  when  he  spoke  in  plain  and  unenigmatical  language, 
they  thought  he  was  speaking  in  parables.  So,  despite 
strange  sinking  of  the  heart,  amazement,  fear,  dark  fore- 
bodings/ they  followed  after  him;  too  awestricken  to 
inquire  his  meaning,  too  full  of  their  own  notions  respect- 
ing the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  conditions  of  its  success 
to  be  able  to  receive  and  understand  his  prophecies. 

So  it  was  not  altogether  strange  that  two  of  his  disciples, 
taking  their  mother  with  them  to  reinforce  their  request, 
came  to  ask  of  him  high  office  in  the  kingdom  when  it 
should  be  established.  It  was  not  very  noble,  this  attempt 
to  steal  a  march  on  their  comrades,  and  no  wonder  the 
ten  were  displeased  when  they  heard  of  it.  And  yet  their 
displeasure  indicated  that  in  them  also  there  was  some- 
thing of  the  same  greed  of  place  and  power.  If  Christ 
foresaw  the  details  of  his  crucifixion,  if  he  knew  that  he 
was  to  be  crucified  between  two  thieves,  one  on  his  right 
hand  and  one  on  his  left,  there  must  have  been  something 
infinitely  pathetic  to  him  in  this  request  from  two  faithful 
and  dear  friends  that  they  might  occupy  these  places  of 
honor  in  his  glory — for  his  cross  is  his  glory.  Certainly 
they  did  not  kno^  what  they  asked.  One  can  but  wonder 
whether  afterwards  they  did  understand  it,  when  they 
looked  upon  the  three  crosses,  under  the  shadow  of  the 
great  darkness.    - 

If  his  own  most  intimate  disciples  so  little  understood 
the  immediate  future,  it  is  not  strange  that  others  did  not 
understand  it.  It  is  in  the  light  of  this  history  that  we 
must  interpret  the  story  of  the  Rich  Young  Ruler.  This 
young  man  was  an  officer  in  a  Jewish  synagogue.  He  be- 
longed presumptively  to  the  better  party  of  the  Pharisees — 
those  who  believed  that  to  love  God  with  all  one's  heart 
and  one's  neighbor  as  one's  self  is  indeed  the  summary  of 
the  law.  He  had  certainly  been  affected  by  the  fame  of 
Jesus's  teaching,  and  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  he 

1  Markx,,  32. 


THE    LAST    JOURNEY    TO    JERUSALEM  II9 

had  been  moved  by  the  teaching  itself.  That  he  was  very 
much  in  earnest  in  his  purpose,  and  really  stirred  to  a 
humble  loyalty,  is  indicated  by  the  facts  stated  by  Mark, 
that  he  came  running,  and  kneeled  to  Jesus  in  the  public 
road.  That  there  was  some  real  sincerity  in  him  is  evi- 
dent from  the  fact  that  Jesus,  looking  on  him,  loved  him. 
But  he  had  no  conception — who  did  at  that  time  ? — that 
the  kingdom  of  God  was  a  kingdom  of  patience,  suffering, 
self-sacrifice,  martyrdom.  This  truth  Christ  put  before 
him  tersely  in  the  simple  direction  to  sell  all  that  he  had 
and  enter  the  little  band  of  twelve,  on  precisely  the  same 
conditions  on  which  they  had  entered  it — for  they  had 
given  up  all  to  become  his  followers.  And  yet,  that  they 
shared  the  rich  young  ruler's  misapprehension,  and  shared 
also  his  expectation  of  an  earthly  and  immediate  recom- 
pense for  a  temporary  sacrifice — which  they  had  faith 
enough  to  make,  but  he  had  not — is  indicated  by  Peter's 
somewhat  egotistical  question,  "  Lo,  we  have  left  all,  and 
followed  thee ;  what  then  shall  we  have  .'"' 

To  my  mind,  there  is  scarcely  any  epoch  in  the  life  of 
Christ,  not  excepting  Gethsemane  and  the  Passion  itself, 
more  full  of  pathos  than  these  last  days,  when  Jesus  was 
surrounded  by  friends  who  would  not  and  could  not  uSider- 
stand  him.  He,  full  of  a  deepening  sorrow,  presently  to 
break  forth  in  tears  over  Jerusalem  ;  they,  full  of  an  increas- 
ing gladness,  presently  to  break  forth  in  shouts  of  Hosanna 
in  the  triumphal  procession. 


CHAPTER   XXXI.— APPROACHING   JERUSALEM 

Mark  x.,  46-52;  Luke  xix.,  1-28;  John  xL,  55 — xii.,  ii 


As  Jesus  approaches  Jerusalem  on  his  last  journey  thither, 
he  falls  in  with  the  crowds  who  are  thronging  to  the  Holy 
City  for  the  Passover  celebration.  The  Galileans,  in  order 
to  avoid  passing  through  heretical  and  inhospitable  Sama- 
ria, often  crossed  the  River  Jordan  a  little  below  the  Sea 
of  Galilee,  passed  down  the  eastern  bank,  and,  recrossing 
the  Jordan  not  far  from  Jericho,  approached  Jerusalem 
from  the  east.  Into  this  pilgrim  throng  Christ  and  his 
disciples,  coming  to  Jerusalem  from  Perea,  naturally 
entered.  The  murmurs  of  the  multitude,  sometimes  grow- 
ing into  shouts  and  hosannas,  were  not  sufficient  to  deafen 
the  ears  of  Christ  to  the  cry  of  need.  Despite  the  protests 
of  the  throng,  who  thought  it  an  impertinence  that  the  King 
coming  to  his  coronation  should  be  disturbed  by  a  blind 
beggar,  he  stopped,  called  Bartimeus  to  him,  and  gave  him 
his  sight.  By  one  of  those  common  inconsistencies  in 
such  a  crowd,  the  very  people  who  had  first  rebuked  the 
beggar  and  told  him  to  still  his  cry,  when  Christ  halted  and 
called  for  Bartimeus,  turned  to  him  jubilant,  saying,  *'  Cheer 
up,  rise,  he  calls  thee."  One  who  believes  that  Jesus 
Christ  is,  in  little  things  as  in  great,  the  manifestation  of 
God,  will  see  in  this  incident  an  illustration  of  the  truth 
that  the  hosannas  of  praise  are  never  so  loud  as  to  prevent 
the  Father  from  hearing  the  cry  of  his  suffering  children 
for  pity. 

The  fame  of  the  coming  King  has  gone  on  before  him,  and 
curiosity  as  well  as  enthusiasm  attracts  multitudes  to  the 
highway  along  which  he  is  passing.  Among  those  thus 
attracted  is  a  tax  gatherer,  who  is  hated  in  the  community, 
as  all  tax-gatherers  were  in  that  age,  most  of  them  not  with- 
out good  reason,  since  under  the  tax  system  an  honest  tax- 
gatherer  was  an  impossibility.  He  is  short  of  stature,  and  he 
desires  to  avoid,  perhaps,  the  jeers  and  jostling  of  an  inimi- 

120 


APPROACHING  JERUSALEM  121 

cal  crowd,  so  he  climbs  a  fig-tree,  whose  low,  wide-spread- 
ing, horizontal  branches  make  it  easy  to  find  a  seat  there. 
The  astonishment  cf  the  crowd  is  not  less  than  his  own 
when  Christ  stops,  looks  up  into  the  tree,  bids  him  come 
down,  and  invites  himself  to  be  the  tax-gatherer's  guest. 
His  choice  is  justified  by  the  result;  the  moral  sentiment 
of  Zaccheus  is  crystallized  into  a  resolve  by  the  presence  of 
the  Master  ;  he  struggles  to  his  feet  and  declares  his  peni- 
tence and  his  purpose  of  reform  :  "  Behold,  Lord,  the  half 
of  my  goods  I  will  give  to  the  poor;  and  if  I  have  wrong- 
fully exacted  aught  of  any  man,  I  will  restore  fourfold." 
This  is  a  kind  of  repentance  which  the  dullest  can  com- 
prehend and  the  least  evangelical  applaud. 

As  we  shall  see  later,  the  disciples  and  the  people  were 
alike  possessed  of  the  idea  that  Christ  was  going  up  to 
Jerusalem  to  deliver  Israel  from  the  Roman  yoke  and  to 
become  the  King  of  his  people ;  and  so  thoroughly  pos- 
sessed of  this  idea  were  they  that  nothing  which  Christ 
could  say  sufficed  to  dispossess  them  of  it.  The  parable 
of  the  ten  pounds  is  in  construction  analogous  to  the 
parable  in  Matthew  of  the  ten  talents,  but  its  scope  and 
purpose  are  different.  The  primary  object  of  the  parable 
in  Matthew,  addressed  solely  to  Christ's  disciples,  is  to 
teach  the  necessity  of  fidelity  and  the  truth  that  property 
is  a  trust,  not  a  personal  possession.  The  primary  object 
of  the  parable  in  Luke,  which  is  addressed  to  all  the  people, 
is  to  teach  that  the  kingdom  of  God  will  not  immediately 
appear ;  incidentally,  how  God's  servants  are  to  prepare  for 
his  appearing,  and  what  is  to  be  the  nature  of  his  reckon- 
ing with  them. 

Reaching  Bethany,  Christ  stops  there,  that  he  may  spend 
the  Sabbath  quietly  with  his  friends  Mary  and  Martha  and 
Lazarus.^  The  sisters  serve  a  supper  to  Christ  at  which 
he,  and  presumably  the  twelve  disciples,  and  perhaps  other 
guests,  sit  down.  The  love  and  joy  in  this  household  to 
which  Christ  has  so  recently  restored  the  brother,  who  is 
also  the  head  of  the  household — Simon,  the  father,  being 
either  dead  or  an  exile  because  of  his  leprosy^ — makes  the 

*  The  chronology  is  uncertain.  I  follow  here  the  order  adopted  by  The  Bible 
Study  Union  Lessons.  See  my  Commentary  on  Matthew,  xxvi.,  6,  for  a  dis- 
cussion of  the  question  of  chronology.  For  a  consideration  of  the  reasons  lor 
believing  this  anointing  to  be  different  from  tliat  reported  in  Luke  vii.,  36-50, 
see  my  Commentary  on  John,  xii.,  i-ii,  preliminary  note. 

'^  Matt,  xxvi.,  6,  7 ;  Mark  xiv.,  3. 


122  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

occasion  a  very  sacred  one.  The  ointment  of  pure  spike- 
nard, which  we  may  suppose  had  been  procured  for 
anointing  the  body  of  Lazarus,  is  too  sacred,  in  the  sister's 
thought,  for  common  use,  but  not  too  sacred  for  the 
anointing  of  her  Master  and  her  Lord ;  so  what  she  had 
purchased  to  express  her  affection  for  her  brother,  she  now 
bestows  as  a  token  of  affection  to  him  who  had  given  her 
brother  life  again.  To  the  sordid  heart  of  Judas  Iscariot 
expenditure  merely  for  the  expression  of  affection  seems  a 
waste.  Christ  sharply  rebukes  him  for  his  protest.  *'Let 
her  alone,"  he  says;  ''why  trouble  ye  the  woman?  she 
hath  wrought  a  good  work  upon  me  ;"  and  he  declares  that 
the  anointing  is  prophetic  and  preparatory  for  his  own 
death  and  burial. 

And  still  neither  Mary  nor  Martha  nor  Lazarus,  nor  the 
Twelve,  not  even  John  with  all  his  insight,  can  understand 
that  in  one  short  week  the  prophecy  of  this  anointing  will 
find  its  fulfillment  at  the  tomb  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea. 


The  Life  of  Christ 


CHAPTER    XXXII.— THE    TRIUMPHAL    ENTRY 

Mark  xi.,  1-14 


I  cannot  approach  the  triumphal  entry  of  Christ  into 
Jerusalem  with  a  feeling  of  triumph.  Palm  Sunday  appears 
to  me  almost  the  saddest  Sunday  in  the  year.  The  din  of 
the  heedless  multitude  crying,  Hosanna  to  the  Son  of 
David,  is  forgotten  as  I  look  upon  Christ  in  a  passionate 
flood  of  tears  in  the  midst  of  the  rejoicing  populace.  Let 
me  ask  the  readers  of  this  chapter  to  try  to  look  upon  this 
scene  as  Christ  looked  upon  it,  to  share  his  reflections,  to 
sympathize  with  his  grief.  Twice  it  is  said  of  Jesus  that  he 
wept.  At  the  grave  of  Lazarus,  surrounded  with  exclama- 
tory and  even  artificial  grief,  tears  silently  welled  up  in  his 
eyes  and  coursed  down  his  cheeks.  On  the  Mount  of 
Olives,  surrounded  with  enthusiastic  multitudes,  he  broke 
into  a  passion  of  what  seemed  to  the  onlookers  to  be  uncon- 
trollable grief,  strange  because  of  the  contrast  to  the  noisy 
rejoicing  of  the  people.-^ 

If  Jesus  Christ  had  ever  hoped,  as  he  may  well  have 
done  in  the  outset  of  his  ministry,  that  Israel  would  under- 
stand its  past  history,  its  divine  mission,  and  its  possible 
glorious  future,  that  hope  had  died  out  of  his  heart.  Re- 
jected by  Galilee,  by  Jerusalem,  by  Perea,  it  was  clear  that 
the  kingdom  of  God  was  to  come,  not  by  the  fidelity  of 
Israel  and  in  its  glory,  but  despite  the  opposition  of  Israel 
and  over  its  ruins.  The  message  of  Israel  to  the  world 
was  plain :  the  message  which  the  Christian  Church  has 
since  interpreted,  though  in  halting  and  broken  sentences. 
That  God  is  love,  that  in  love  he  has  created  and  rules  the 
world,  that  love  is  the  law  he  has  laid  down  for  all  his  chil- 

1  In  John  xi.,  35,tHe  verb  is  SaKpvo)  idakruo) ,  to  shed  tears  silently    in  Luke 
xix.,  41,  the  verb  is  K\ato)  {klaio) ,  to  weep  audibly, 

123 


124  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

dren,  and  that  by  love  he  would  redeem  them  and  bring 
them  into  oneness  of  life  and  purpose  with  himself — this 
was  the  message  of  the  Old  Testament  prophets,  from  the 
days  of  Moses  to  those  of  John  the  Baptist.  And  what  in 
many  portions  and  in  divers  manners  God  spake  unto  the 
fathers  by  the  prophets,  he  was  now  speaking  by  his  Son.^ 
But  Israel  had  not  accepted  the  message  of  the  prophets, 
and  would  not  accept  the  message  of  the  Son.  And  it 
was  clear  to  the  spiritual  vision  of  Christ  that  the  message 
must  be  given  to  a  new  people,  that  the  kingdom  of  God 
must  be  taken  from  the  Jews  and  given  to  a  nation  that 
would  bring  forth  the  fruits  thereof.^  Loving  his  people, 
longing  for  their  redemption,  and  foreseeing  their  doom, 
he  went  up  to  Jerusalem  for  the  very  purpose  of  putting 
before  the  people,  gathered  in  the  Holy  City  on  this  their 
Holy  Week,  the  truth  which  he  dreaded  but  from  which 
he  could  not  escape.  The  people  had  clamored  for  a 
mighty  miracle  which  would  demonstrate  his  right  to  their 
confidence.  What  he  had  refused  to  popular  clamor  he 
had  granted  to  sorrowing  love.  The  resurrection  of  Laz- 
arus had  convinced  even  the  rulers  of  the  Sanhedrim  of 
Christ's  supernal  power,  but  it  had  not  made  them  more 
willing  to  accept  his  divine  authority^  nor  more  amenable 
to  his  sacred  influence.  On  the  contrary,  its  only  effect 
was  to  intensify  and  concentrate  their  opposition  to  him. 
It  stirred  them  up  to  self-reproach,  not  for  rejecting  Christ, 
but  for  their  failure  to  neutralize  his  influence.  "  What 
are  we  doing  ?"  they  said  to  one  another.  *'  Do  we  not 
see  that  this  man  is  doing  many  miracles  ?  and  if  we  do 
not  bestir  ourselves  the  people  will  beheve  on  him,  and  the 
Romans  will  take  away  our  offices  from  us."  ^  For  at  this 
time  the  Jewish  officers  held  their  places  by  sufferance  of 
Rome,  whose  policy  it  was  to  sustain  the  local  authorities 
in  the  conquered  provinces  for  the  sake  of  pacifying  the 
people  and  preventing  local  insurrections.  If  the  priest- 
hood once  lost  the  confidence  of  the  people,  they  would 
lose  the  support  of  the  Roman  Government.  For  they 
would  have  nothing  to  give  in  exchange  for  that  support. 

From  Jericho  Christ  came  to  Bethany,  the  village  of 
Mary  and  Martha  and  their  brother  Lazarus.  Here  he 
spent  the  Sabbath.     Here  the  supper  was  given  by  the 

iReb,  i.,  I,  2.  2  Matt,  xxi.,  43.  ^  John  xi.,  47,  48. 


THE    TRIUMPHAL    ENTRY  I 25 

sisters  in  his  honor,  to  him  and  the  twelve ;  and  here  he 
received  the  prophetic  anointing  referred  to  in  our  last 
chapter.  And  hence,  on  the  first  day  of  the  week,  he 
started  for  the  Holy  City.  It  did  not  need  a  prophet's 
vision  to  perceive  that  he  would  be  greeted  as  King  and 
Messiah  by  the  populace.  It  did  not  need  a  prophet's 
vision  to  perceive  that  the  Temple  authorities  would  put  him 
to  death  if  they  could.  Their  purposes  were  no  secret. 
Christ  foresaw  what  the  issue  would  be  :  on  the  one  side  an 
ignorant  popular  enthusiasm,  unorganized,  misconceiving 
his  mission  and  misdirected  in  its  zeal ;  on  the  other,  an 
implacable,  powerful,  and  crafty  faction,  skillful  in  inflaming 
popular  prejudice,  and  backed  by  the  power  of  the  Roman 
Government,  with  which  it  was  in  corrupt  partnership. 
But  he  definitely  resolved  to  meet  the  issue  ;  because  he 
definitely  foresaw  that  only  by  his  martyrdom  could  he 
inspire  the  world  with  his  spirit  and  give  to  it  his  life. 
Knowing  that  this  short-lived  triumph  is  the  beginning  of 
the  end,  that  he  is  marching  to  his  death  amid  the  plaudits 
of  the  multitude,  and  that  they  are  preparing,  not  only  for 
his  death,  but  for  the  doom  of  the  nation,  he  calmly  gives 
the  directions  to  his  disciples  to  make  ready  for  a  trium- 
phant entrance  into  the  city  which  is  to  crucify  him. 

But  his  disciples  do  not  share  his  vision.  They  believe 
that  at  last  they  are  to  have  their  way  ;  that  their  Master 
is  going  to  proclaim  himself  King  and  set  the  nation  free 
at  once  from  Roman  and  from  priestly  domination.  Their 
enthusiasm  knows  no  bounds.  Some  go  before ;  some 
follow  after  ;  some,  hearing  of  the  approach,  come  out  from 
Jerusalem  to  meet  the  procession.  One  enthusiastic  fol- 
lower takes  off  his  burnoose  and  binds  it  on  the  colt  to 
form  a  saddle  for  the  King.  Others  cast  their  burnooses 
before  him  that  he  may  ride  upon  a  cloaked  and  gar- 
mented highway.  Others  climb  the  trees  and  cut  down 
branches  to  strew  before  him  ;  still  others  gather  leaves 
and  rushes  for  the  same  purpose.  Then,  by  a  spontaneous 
movement,  the  crowd  catch  up  the  great  Hallel  chanted 
at  the  Paschal  feast,  and  sing  it  in  antiphonal  strains  : 

Save,  now,  I  beseech  thee,  O  Lord ; 
Response.  O  Lord,  I  beseech  thee,  send  now  prosperity. 

Blessed  is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord ; 
Response.  We  have  blessed  you  out  of  the  house  of  the  Lord. 


126  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

God  is  the  Lord  which  hath  shewed  us  light ; 
Response.  Bind  the  sacrifice  with  cords,  even  unto  ihe  horns 
of  the  altar. 
Thou  art  my  God,  and  I  will  praise  thee  ; 
Response.  Thou  art  my  God,  I  will  exalt  thee. 
All  together.  O  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord,  for  he  is  good  ;  for 
his  mercy  endureth  forever. 

So,  singing,  shouting,  running  before,  following  after, 
strewing  cloaks,  rushes,  palm- branches  in  the  way,  the 
increasing  procession  climbed  the  hill  and  came  in  sight 
of  the  Holy  City.  The  people  saw  the  great  Temple  shin- 
ing in  the  sun,  and  crowds  hastening  out  from  the  city 
gates  to  meet  the  King  and  add  their  greetings  to  those 
that  sounded  across  the  intervening  valley  from  the  crown 
of  the  hill. 

But  Christ  saw  a  far  different  spectacle.  With  prophetic 
vision  he  saw  the  Roman  soldiery  laying  siege  to  the  beauti- 
ful city  ;  he  saw  the  trenches  cast  up  about  it,  and  the  bat- 
tering-rams encircling  it,  and  the  crucifixes  with  the  Jewish 
prisoners  hanging  on  them,  and  the  walls  crumbling  beneath 
the  assaults  of  the  ballistae,  and  the  city  given  up  to  sack  and 
flame  and  cruel  outrage,  and  the  Temple  a  heap  of  ruins, 
and  the  Roman  banners  flying  in  the  very  Holy  of  Holies. 
The  contrast  was  too  great  to  be  borne,  and  he  broke  out 
into  a  passionate  outcry  of  grief :  "  If  thou  hadst  known, 
even  thou,  yea,  even  in  this  thy  day  of  mercy,  what  would 
tend  unto  thy  peace  !     But  it  is  hid  from  thine  eyes." 

O  blind  and  slow  of  heart  to  believe !  Strange  blind- 
ness— strange,  but  common.  For  still  the  world  is  full  of 
men  who  cannot  discern  the  signs  of  the  times ;  who  mis- 
read shame  for  glory,  and  glory  for  shame  ;  who  think  that 
great  cities,  warehouses,  railroads,  are  the  symbol  of 
national  glory  and  the  guarantee  of  national  strength  and 
perpetuity ;  who  do  not  know  that  the  Mayflower  was  a 
grander  vessel  than  the  modern  ocean  greyhound  ;  and  a 
Puritan  village,  with  its  quiet  life  of  heroism  and  self- 
denial,  was  more  glorious  than  a  modern  Babylon,  with  its 
life  of  luxury  and  self-indulgence  ;  and  that  the  strength 
and  perpetuity  of  a  nation  lie  in  its  fidelity  to  its  message 
and  its  mission  and  the  heed  it  gives  to  its  prophets. 

One  more  effort  Christ  made  to  teach  his  disciples  the 
worthlessness  of  this  vociferous  enthusiasm.    It  was  on  the 


THE    TRIUMPHAL    ENTRY  127 

following  day.  They  came  to  a  fig-tree,  full  of  promising 
leaves,  but  with  no  fruit  upon  it.  If  I  read  the  narrative 
aright,  he  did  not  curse  the  tree ;  he  foretold  its  inevitable 
future.  He  saw  that  death  which  had  already  taken  hold  of 
it  and  said,  ''No  one  will  ever  eat  fruit  of  thee."  And  the 
next  day  the  visible  signs  of  decay  showed  themselves  even 
to  the  disciples.  The  fruitless  vineyard  was  to  the  reader 
of  the  Hebrew  prophets  a  familiar  analogue  of  an  apostate 
nation.^  But  the  disciples  could  not,  for  they  would  not, 
understand.  We  shall  see  in  succeeding  chapters  how 
Christ  reiterated  this  simple  message,  and  how  the  disciples, 
not  less  than  the  populace,  refused  to  receive  it.  Not  till 
they  heard  his  death-cry,  "  Father,  into  thy  hands  I  com- 
mit my  spirit,"  and  saw  his  head  drop  upon  his  breast, 
did  they  believe  that  he  must  die  that  the  world  might  live  ; 
and  not  even  then  did  they  believe  that  Judaism  must  die 
in  giving  birth  to  Christianity. 

ilsa.  v.,  1-7. 

Remark— Whether  there  was  a  second  cleansing  of  the  Temple  is  not  cer- 
tain. The  act  has  already  been  treated  in  these  papers,  in  the  order  in  which  it 
is  placed  by  John.    See  Chapter  VII.  of  this  Life. 


CHAPTER   XXXIIL— THE   CHALLENGE 

Mark  xi.,  20— xii.,  12;  Matt,  xxi.,  20— xxii.,  14 


The  ecclesiastics  of  Jerusalem  recognized  in  the  tri- 
umphal entry  of  Jesus  Christ  into  the  Holy  City  a  chal- 
lenge to^  their  authority.  If  we  are  to  suppose  that  there 
was,  as  is  indicated  by  the  synoptic  narratives,  a  second 
cleansing  of  the  Temple,  the  challenge  was  not  merely 
indicated,  it  was  very  vigorously  offered.  They  found 
themselves  assailed  in  the  very  citadel  of  their  power,  the 
Temple  itself,  and  they  challenged  the  challenger.  ''Who 
givest  thee  authority  to  do  these  things  .?"  they  indignantly 
demanded.  The  indignation  was  not  assumed;  it  was 
real ;  it  was  the  indignation  of  ecclesiastics  whose  assump- 
tion of  an  exclusive  right  to  speak  and  act  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord  has  been  rudely  called  in  question.  Christ 
answered  their  demand  by  making  one  on  them  :  "  What 
was  the  authority  of  John  the  Baptist .?"  They  were  clever  . 
enough  to  discern  the  dilemma.  They  dared  not  deny  his 
authority — to  do  so  would  be  to  weaken  their  own,  since 
all  men  counted  John  as  a  prophet ;  nor  affirm  it,  for  they 
had  treated  John's  message  as  cavalieily  as  they  treated 
Christ's.  They  shrank  from  the  test ;  and  Christ,  with  a 
hero's  contempt  for  cowards,  refused  to  discuss  with  them 
the  question  of  his  authority. 

We  are  not  to  regard  this  as  a  simple  politic  ruse  to  get 
the  better  of  troublesome  but  unscrupulous  opponents. 
Christ's  question  was  vital ;  it  goes  to  the  root  of  this 
problem.  What  is  the  test  of  authority  in  matters  of  relig- 
ion .?  If  authority  depends,  as  the  ecclesiastics  of  all  ages 
would  have  us  believe,  on  special  appointment,  neither 
John  nor  Jesus  was  the  authorized  bearer  of  a  divine 
message.  For  though  John  was  the  son  of  a  priest,  there 
is  no  indication  that  he  was  ever  inducted  into  the  priest- 
hood ;  and  Jesus  not  only  never  received  any  ecclesiastical 
ordination  or  recognition  of  any  description,  but  it  was 

128 


THE    CHALLENGE  129 

cast  in  his  teeth  that  he  had  never  had  any  theological 
training.-^  But  if  the  possession  of  a  divine  spirit  and  of 
the  power  to  utter  divine  truth  so  as  to  convict  men  of  sin 
and  awaken  them  to  righteousness  is  a  sufficient  demon- 
stration of  authority  to  utter  such  message,  then  both  John 
and  Jesus  had,  in  the  results  of  their  ministry,  their  creden- 
tials given  to  them.  It  was  impossible  to  deny  Jesus's 
authority  without  denying  not  only  that  of  John  the  Bap- 
tist, but  also  that  of  the  long  line  of  Hebrew  prophets,  who 
were  without  ecclesiastical  position,  ordination,  recogni- 
tion, or  appointment  of  any  kind.  Ecclesiasticism  had 
not  yet  reached  a  point  such  that  even  the  Jewish  priest- 
hood could  venture  to  make  such  a  denial — which  would 
clairri  authority  for  Zedekiah  the  priest  and  deny  it  to 
Jeremiah  the  prophet,  recognize  it  in  Caiaphas  and  refuse 
to  see  it  in  Christ. 

The  challengers  silenced,  Christ  in  turn  challenges  them. 

The  Temple  was  built  in  a  series  of  courts,  one  within 
the  other.  The  outermost  court,  that  of  the  Gentiles,  was 
open  to  all  the  people,  regardless  of  their  social  condition, 
ecclesiastical  character,  race,  or  religion.  It  was  the  iotel- 
lectual  and  religious  exchange  of  Jerusalem,  the  meeting- 
p^ace  of  all  the  people.  Here  Christ  took  up  his  position, 
and  here  in  public  teaching  he  challenged  the  scribes,  who 
claimed  a  monopoly  of  truth,  and  the  priesthood,  who 
claimed  a  monopoly  of  worship.  He  embodies  this  chal- 
lenge in  three  parables :  simple  stories,  by  which  he  not 
only  catches  and  enchains  the  attention  of  the  multitude, 
but  so  veils  his  ultimate  purpose  that  they  do  not  see  the 
application  of  the  story  until  it  is  ended — and  then  they 
cannot  get  away  from  it.  Once  at  least  he  puts  a  question 
to  them  at  the  close,  by  the  suddenness  of  his  question 
elicits  their  answer,  and  then  shows  them  what  they  have 
said,  and  how  it  bears  upon  themselves. 

Of  two  sons,  one  of  whom  promised  obedience  and  dis- 
obeyed, the  other  of  whom  refused  obedience  and  obeyed, 
which  is  the  better  ?  Which  will  you  choose  for  your  son, 
Profession  or  Practice  ?  Practice,^  of  course.  Yes!  What, 
then,  will  you  say  of  a  people  which  is  prodigal  of  profes- 
sion and  barren  of  practice ;  which  is  continually  saying, 
I  go,  sir,  and  never  going  ? 

.1  John  vii.,  it;. 


130  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

A  man  had  a  vineyard  which  he  let  out  to  a  tenantry. 
But  when  he  sent  his  servants  to  collect  the  rent,  which 
was  payable  in  kind,  the  tenantry  beat  the  servants ;  and 
when  finally  he  sent  his  son  to  call  them  to  a  reckoning, 
they  killed  the  son.  What  will  the  owner  do  to  them  ? 
What  ought  he  to  do  ?  "  Miserable  fellows  !  miserably 
will  he  destroy  them,  and  let  out  the  vineyard  to  honest 
tenants,"  cries  some  one  in  the  throng.  "Surely!"  replies 
Christ.  "  And  you  have  yourself  uttered  the  doom  of  this 
nation.  The  kingdom  of  God  will  be  taken  from  it,  and 
given  to  a  people  that  will  bring  forth  the  fruits  of  the 
kingdom,"  But  they  cannot  endure  this  application  of 
the  principle,  though  they  have  themselves  declared  its 
justice.  ''God  forbid!"  they  cry;  and  yet  courage  and 
truth  always  find  response  in  a  multitude,  and  the  priest- 
hood dare  not  lay  hands  on  Christ  for  fear  of  the  multitude, 
who  see  in  him  a  prophet  of  Jehovah. 

The  third  story  is  a  new  adaptation  of  a  parable  which, 
in  a  different  form,  Christ  has  used  before.^  A  king  gives 
a  wedding  feast.  His  subjects  are  in  revolt  against  him, 
and  treat  his  invitation  contemptuously.  Some  scoff  at  the 
invitation  ;  some  mob  the  heralds  who  bring  the  invitation. 
The  king  sends  out  his  army  and  subjugates  the  province 
and  punishes  the  mob.  A  second  invitation  is  not  treated 
so  cavalierly.  But  of  those  who  come  some  are  loyal  and 
true,  some  are  not ;  and  one  man  ventures  to  show  his 
contempt  for  the  king  by  coming  to  the  feast  in  his  com- 
mon laborer's  apparel.  That  this  was  not  because  he  was 
too  poor  to  pay  proper  respect  to  his  host  is  clear  from 
the  fact  that  when  he  is  called  to  account  he  has  no  de- 
fense to  offer.  He  is  bound  hand  and  foot  and  thrust  out 
into  the  night. 

Loyalty,  love,  service,  are  individual  matters.  A  loyal 
nation  will  not  save  an  individual  from  the  effects  of  his 
own  disloyalty ;  a  disloyal  nation  will  not  involve  in  its 
own  condemnation  the  loyal  individual.  The  children's 
teeth  will  not  be  set  on  edge  because  the  fathers  have  eaten 
sour  grapes.  The  son  who  says,  "  I  go,  sir,"  and  goes  not ; 
the  tenantry  who  forget  that  their  possessions  are  a  trust 

^  For  the  reasons  for  believing  that  this  is  not  a  mere  different  report  of  the 
parable  of  the  Wedding  Feast  in  Luke  xiv.,  15-24,  see  my  Commentary  on 
Matthew,  ch.  xxii.,  1-14,  preliminary  note. 


THE    CHALLENGE  13I 

and  use  them  for  themselves ;  and  the  individual  who  pro- 
fesses his  loyalty  by  accepting  the  king's  invitation,  but 
shows  his  contempt  for  the  king  by  making  no  personal 
preparation  to  be  worthy  of  the  king's  companionship,  are 
all  alike  condemned.  The  Jewish  priesthood  are  under 
this  triple  condemnation.  They  have  professed  much  loy- 
alty to  Jehovah ;  but  they  are  not  doing  Jehovah's  work  of 
sowing  the  seeds  of  righteousness  in  the  world.  They 
have  taken  his  gifts  of  light  and  liberty  and  truth,  and  have 
not  recognized  them  as  trusts,  but,  in  contempt  of  God 
and  man,  have  shut  out  the  pagan  world  from  partici- 
pation in  them.  They  have  chanted,  without  comprehend- 
ing, the  ancient  Psalm : 

Who  shall  ascend  into  the  hill  of  Jehovah? 

Or  who  shall  stand  in  his  holy  place.-* 

He  that  hath  clean  hands,  and  a  pure  heart; 

Who  hath  not  lifted  up  his  soul  unto  vanit}', 

And  hath  not  sworn  deceitfully. 

He  shall  receive  the  blessing  from  Jehovah, 

And  righteousness  from  the  God  of  his  salvation. 

They  have  thought  they  could  come  into  the  Temple  and 
the  companionship  of  God  without  divineness  of  character, 
and  could  see  God  and  sit  at  his  table  without  being  pure 
in  heart. 

By  these  parables  Christ  prepares  the  way  for  still  more 
explicit  teaching,  soon  to  follow,  in  denunciation  of  priestly 
false  pretense. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV.— DAYS  OF  CONFLICT 

Matt,  xxii.,   15 — xxiii.,  37 


Christ's  gentleness  and  meekness  were  certainly  not  the 
fruits  of  timidity  or  irresolution.  It  would  not  be  easy  to 
find  in  history  an  instance  of  a  reformer  more  beset  by 
conflicting  forces,  agreed  in  nothing  except  hostility  to 
him,  or  one  meeting  the  attacks  of  various  foes  with  more 
sangfroid,  parrying  their  thrusts  with  more  skill,  or  more 
evidently  worsting  them  in  the  encounter.  In  the  last 
day  of  conflict,  described  most  fully  in  Matthew,  the 
result  of  the  strange  conspiracy  between  Pharisees,  Sad- 
ducees,  and  Herodians  is  to  ,expose  their  plots  and  subject 
them  at  the  end  to  what  is  perhaps  the  most  scathing 
philippic  in  literature. 

With  much  semblance  of  flattering  respect,  some  of  the 
Pharisees,  commingling  with  the  Herodians,  submit  a 
question  respecting  the  tribute.  The  Herodians  were 
apostate  politicians  and  supporters  of  the  Roman  Govern- 
ment. They  came  to  the  front  in  presenting  this  ques- 
tion :  "  Is  it  lawful  to  pay  tribute  to  Caesar  ?"  If  Christ 
answered  Yes,  he  inflamed  against  himself  the  po.^ular 
prejudice  of  a  people  to  whom  tribute  was  doubly  odious, 
first  as  a  tax  imposed  on  a  race  who  have  never  been  very 
ready  to  part  with  their  money,  and  second  as  a  badge  of 
the  political  bondage  of  a  people  naturally  haughty  and 
independent.  If  he  answered  No,  the  use  his  interlocutors 
would  have  made  of  his  reply  is  indicated  by  the  false 
charge  they  preferred  a  little  later  concerning  him  to 
Herod  :  "  We  found  this  fellow  perverting  the  nation  and 
forbidding  to  give  tribute  to  Csesar."  It  did  not  take 
great  sagacity  to  see  through  their  device ;  but  how  to 
meet  it  was  not  so  clear.  Christ  called  for  a  coin  of  the 
realm,  asked  them  whose  image  and  superscription  it  bore, 
and  when  they  answered,  "  Caesar's,"  responded  with  the 
saying,  ever  since  famous,  '^  Render  unto  Caesar  the  things 

^32 


DAYS    OF    CONFLICT 


133 


that  are  Caesar's  ;  and  unto  God  the  things  that  are 
God's."  In  accepting  the  benefits  of  Caesar's  govern- 
ment— among  other  benefits  his  coinage — they  bound 
themselves  to  loyalty  to  -that  government.  The  same 
principle  bound  them  to  loyalty  to  God's  government. 
And  they  were  disloyal  to  both. 

Then  the  Sadducees  made  their  experiment.  They  were 
the  unbelievers  and  materialists  of  Palestine.  They  in- 
vented and  brought  to  him  a  story  of  a  woman  with  seven 
successive  husbands,  and  asked  Christ  triumphantly  to 
whom  she  would  belong  in  the  celestial  sphere.  His  answer 
has  always  seemed  to  me  as  inconsistent  with  the  notion  of 
a  hades  in  which  disembodied  spirits  wait  for  a  future 
resurrection,  or  of  "  a  long  and  dreary  sleep  "  to  be  followed 
by  some  far-away  general  resurrection,  as  it  is  with  the 
doctrine  that  "  death  ends  all."  "  I  am  the  God  of  Abra- 
ham, and  the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the  God  of  Jacob.  God 
is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living."  Then 
Abraham  and  Isaac  and  Jacob  are  and  were  living — neither 
sleeping  the  last  and  fatal  sleep,  nor  a  long  sleep  in  which 
life  is  as  it  were  suspended,  nor  dwelling  in  some  imper- 
fect form  of  life  to  be  perfected  by  a  future  resurrection. 
They  are  living  ;  living  now ;  and  full  of  life,  not  half  liv- 
ing. As  to  the  problems  which  we  endeavor  to  carry  over 
into  the  other  world  from  this,  the  answer  to  them  all  is 
that  we  "  know  not  the  power  of  God."  We  understand 
present  forms  of  life  ;  but  not  the  forms  of  the  life  to  come. 

The  Pharisees  brought  to  him  the  third  question.  Phari- 
saism had  robbed  the  simple  religion  of  the  prophets — 
doing  justly,  loving  mercy,  and  walking  humbly  before 
God — of  its  simplicity,  by  dividing  Judaism  into  schools  and 
sects.  Instead  of  concentrating  their  life's  energies  on  the 
one  work  of  fulfilling  God's  law  in  life  and  in  character, 
they  frittered  their  energies  away  in  profitless  debates. 
Among  other  questions  they  debated  was  this  :  Which  is 
the  greatest  of  the  commandments  .''  One  laid  stress  on  the 
moral,  another  on  the  cereraoniaj,  law  ;  one  on  the  sacri- 
fices, another  on  the  Sabbath,  a  third  on  ritualistic  regula- 
tions concerning  prayer  and  fasting,  a  fourth  on  ablutions, 
and  so  on,  with  many  variations.  To  Christ  there  came 
some  of  these  Pharisees,  demanding  that  he  declare  him- 
self.    To  which  school   did   he  belong  ?     Which  did  he 


134  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

regard  as  the  chief  commandment  ?  Much  as  now  a  con- 
gregation might  demand  of  a  preacher,  Tell  us  frankly,  are 
you  Baptist  or  Pedobaptist  ?  Independent  or  Episcopa- 
lian ?  Calvinist  or  Arminian  ?  Trinitarian  or  Unitarian  ? 
Christ's  reply  sets  all  such  schools  and  sects  aside.  There 
is  but  one  commandment — love.  The  consecration  in  love 
of  the  whole  nature  to  God ;  the  service  in  love,  through  all 
the  life,  of  humanity — this  is  the  whole  duty  of  man. 

The  critics  of  Jesus  Christ  retiring  from  their  interviews 
discomfited,  he  addresses  them  a  question  respecting  the 
Messiah  whom  they  are  expecting.  "  Whose  son  is  he  ?" 
*'  The  son  of  David  ;"  in  the  royal  line  ;  and  coming — this 
is  the  natural  deduction — to  reinstate  the  kingdom  of 
David.  What,  then,  do  they  make  of  David's  inspired 
recognition  of  his  lordship  and  his  supreme  and  mystical 
priesthood  ?  ^  Clearly,  in  David's  inspired  thought  of  the 
Messiah,  there  was  some  one  more  than  a  successor  to 
David,  something  in  his  anticipated  reign  of  more  than  a 
mere  reinstatement  of  David's  authority.  The  Pharisees 
cannot  answer  ;  their  conception  of  the  Messiah  and  his 
reign  they  cannot  reconcile  with  the  prophetic  motif,  which 
coniinually  reappears,  in  melodic  fragments,  in  the  Old 
Testament,  from  Moses  to  Malachi.  Official  interpreters 
as  they  are  of  the  Old  Testament,  they  cannot  reconcile 
their  conceptions  of  the  Messiah  and  his  reign  with  any 
intelligible  conceptions  of  the  Old  Testament  prophecy. 

Then  Christ  turns  to  his  disciples  and  to  the  multitude, 
and,  pointing  to  the  self-constituted  religious  leaders  of 
the  people,  launches  into  that  philippic  against  them  re- 
ported in  the  twenty-third  chapter  of  Matthew.  It  is 
directed,  not  against  the  Herodians,  the  corrupt  politi- 
cians, not  against  the  Sadducees,  the  materialists  and 
infidels,  but  against  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  the  leaders 
of  Jewish  orthodoxy.  Limits  of  time  and  space  forbid  any 
interpretation  of  this  address,  but  a  few  words  may  be  said 
respecting  the  general  spirit.  We  may  read  it  as  a  lament : 
Alas  for  you.  Scribes  and  Pharisees !  The  original  words 
may  perhaps  bear  this  construction,  but  it  does  not  seem 
to  me  consonant  with  the  structure  and  tone  of  the  address. 
We  may  read  it  as  a  pure  invective ;  a  volcano  of  wrath 
untempered  by  love.     But  this  does  not  consist  with  its 

^  See  Psa,  ex.,  to  which  Christ  refers. 


DAYS    OF    CONFLICT  135 

close,  "  O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  .  .  .  how  often  would  I 
have  gathered  thee  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under 
her  wings,  and  ye  would  not  \"  I  believe  that  its  method 
is  rebuke,  but  its  end  is  love.  Christ  has  come  to  seek 
and  to  save  the  lost.  He  who  recognizes  himself  and  is 
recognized  by  the  world  as  a  sinner  does  not  need  rebuke  ; 
he  needs  counsel,  hope,  courage.  He  knows  already  that 
the  way  of  transgressors  is  hard,  but  he  knows  not  how  to 
find  a  better  way,  or  lacks  the  courage  to  make  the  effort. 
To  the  publicans,  the  harlots,  the  drunkards,  in  short,  the 
recognized  "  sinners,"  Christ  does  not  speak  in  words  of 
condemnation.  He  shows  them  a  way  of  escape,  and 
reaches  out  a  hand  to  help  them  to  take  it.  Bat  the  man 
who  thinks  he  is  virtuous  because  he  is  religious,  who 
devours  widows'  houses  and  satisfies  his  conscience  with 
long  prayers,  who  pays  tithes  of  mint  and  anise,  and  so 
compromises  for  omitting  judgment,  mercy,  and  faithful- 
ness, whose  religious  zeal  is  all  expended  in  making  prose- 
lytes, so  that  he  has  none  left  for  making  character,  who, 
in  short,  is  incased  in  an  armor  of  self-conceit,  can  be 
saved  only  by  being  humiliated.  He  must  be  disrobed 
and  unmasked  before  the  public;  must  be  made  to  see 
himself  as  others  see  him;  must  be  told  to  his  face  what 
others  have  said  behind  his  back,  and  told  it  in  public  that 
he  may  be  humiliated.  The  self-conceited  man  can  be 
saved  only  as  his  self-conceit  is  punctured.  If  the  reader 
will  compare  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  Luke  wiih  the  twenty- 
third  chapter  of  Matthew,  he  will  get  some  light  on  the 
question  when  the  follower  of  Christ  should  preach  the 
Law  and  when  the  Gospel ;  whom  he  should  encourage 
and  whom  he  should  rebuke. 

With  the  close  of  this  chapter  the  battle  between  Christ 
and  Judaism  comes  to  its  close.  He  has  openly  denounced 
the  loveless  religion  which  holds  sway  in  Jerusalem.  Its 
humiliated  and  embittered  leaders  are  strengthened  in  their 
purpose  and  renew  their  plans  of  revenge. 


CHAPTER    XXXV.— THE   GREEKS'    COMING    TO 

JESUS 

Mark  xii.,  41-44 ;  John  xii.,  20-50 


In  coming  from  last  week's  lesson  to  this  week's  we 
seem  almost  to  pass  from  one  teacher  to  another.  Christ's 
instructions  in  the  Temple,  as  they  are  reported  by  Mat- 
thew, are  perfectly  clear.  There  is  no  misunderstanding 
their  import  or  their  connection.  Christ's  soliloquy — for  it 
is  hardly  more  than  that — as  reported  by  John  in  this 
chapter  is  mystical  in  its  spirit,  and  the  connection  of  its 
parts  is  far  from  self-evident.  There  are,  I  think,  two  rea- 
sons for  this  contrast.  In  the  first  place,  we  must  all 
recognize  that  a  great  variety  of  thought  and  style  is  not 
uncommon  in  men  of  the  greatest  genius.  Between  such 
a  sweet  summer  idyl  as  "As  You  Like  It "  and  such  a 
tragic  character-study  as  "  Hamlet "  there  is  quite  as 
great  a  difference — of  another  kind,  of  course — as  between 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  as  reported  by  Matthew  and  the 
Sermon  at  Capernaum  as  reported  by  John.  The  differ- 
ences between  certain  sermons  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
are  not  perhaps  as  great,  but  are  scarcely  less  striking. 
But  the  genius  of  a  great  man  is  not  imparted  to  his  re- 
porters ;  and  when  we  are  dependent  on  reporters  for  all 
that  we  know  of  his  addresses,  we  must  expect  just  what 
we  find  in  the  case  of  Jesus — very  great  differences  between 
those  aspects  of  his  teaching  presented  by  such  a  mind  as 
that  of  Matthew  and  those  indicated  by  such  a  writer  as 
John.  Each  reports  what  strikes  him,  or,  to  use  Cole- 
ridge's phrase,  "  finds  him."  In  addition  to  this,  it  is  not 
at  all  unreasonable,  nor  at  all  inconsistent  with  any  ra- 
tional doctrine  of  inspiration,  to  suppose  that  each  reporter 
has  given  us,  not  a  verbatim  report,  but  one  translated 
and  interpreted  in  the  reporter's  language  ;  that,  accord- 
ingly, we  have  the  discourses  of  Jesus  Christ,  to  some  ex- 
tent, interpreted  as  well  as  reported  by  the  four  Evangelists. 
Moreover,  it  is  not  improbable  that  John  knew  the  sub- 

136 


THE    greeks'    coming    TO    JESUS  137 

Stance  of  the  other  three  Gospels,  wrote  after  they  were 
written,  and  in  order  to  supply,  not  merely  certain  incidents 
and  instructions,  but  also  certain  phases  of  character, 
which  they  had  failed  to  indicate. 

John,  then,  writing  after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem 
and  the  missionary  progress  of  Christianity  in  Greece  and 
Rome,  looks  back  to  the  teachings  of  Jesus  in  the  Temple, 
and  recalls  the  incident  which  at  the  time  the  Apostles 
did  not  and  could  not  understand,  but  which  the  subse- 
quent flocking  of  the  Gentiles  to  the  Christian  Church 
interpreted.  At  this  very  hour,  when  the  Herodians,  the 
Sadducees,  and  the  Pharisees  were  making  common  cause 
against  Christ,  when  the  chief  priests  and  the  scribes  were 
counseling  how  they  might  slay  him,  when  Judas  had  already 
planned  the  treacherous  betrayal  of  his  Master— at  this 
very  hour  certain  Greeks  who  had  come  up  to  the  feast  to 
worship,  heathen  who  had  accepted  Jehovah  as  the  true 
God,  and  in  so  far  had  accepted  the  Jewish  religion,  came 
to  one  of  Christ's  disciples  and  sought  an  introduction  to 
their  Master.  Christ  saw  in  this  incident  the  beginning  of 
the  fulfillment  of  the  ancient  prophecy:  "  Arise,  shine  ;  for 
thy  light  is  come,  and  the  glory  of  the  Lord  is  risen  upon 
thee.  .  .  .  And  Gentiles  shall  come  to  thy  light,  and  kings 
to  the  brightness  of  thy  rising."  i  This  prophecy  forms  at 
once  the  inspiration  and  the  theme  of  his  monologue,  I 
might  almost  say  his  soliloquy. 

This  advance  guard  of  the  Gentiles  is  the  witness  that 
the  hour  in  which  Judaism  rejects  the  Christ  begins  the  era 
of  his  acceptance  by  the  Gentile  world.  Judea  rejects  him 
that  Greece  and  Rome  andGermany  and  Great  Britain  and 
America  may  accept  him.  Thus  his  rejection  is  his  triumph  ; 
his  death  is  his  victory ;  his  crucifixion  is  his  exaltation! 
This  is  the  law  of  life.  Death  ministers  to  life  ;  is  its  pre- 
cursor, is  its  necessary  condition.  The  egg  must  be  broken 
that  the  bird  may  fly;  the  seed  must  die  that  the  plant 
may  live.  So  in  the  evolution  of  life  each  order  perishes 
in  giving  birth  to  a  new  order;  each  civilization  seems  to 
fail  that  not  only  upon  but  out  of  its  ruins  a  better  civiliza- 
tion may  be  constructed.  The  decline  and  fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire  is  the  birth  and  development  of  a  new 
European  Empire,  the  end  of  which  is  not  yet. 

^Isa.  Ix.,  I,  3. 


138  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

So  each  leader  dies  in  order  that  he  may  lead.  His 
principles  and  his  spirit  are  disseminated  more  widely  after 
his  departure  than  before.  Being  dead  he  not  only  speak- 
eth,  but  speaketh  with  a  voice  more  persuasive  and  far- 
reaching.  The  blood  of  the  martyr  is  the  seed  of  the 
Church,  a  seed  which  death's  breath  wafts  over  a  conti- 
nent, whereas  before  it  was  confined  to  the  immediate  con- 
gregation and  the  local  discipleship.  The  ministry  of  the 
martyred  Huss  has  been  a  thousand-fold  more  influential 
than  that  of  an  unmartyred  Huss  could  have  been. 

Thus  does  death  minister  to  life.  The  Christ  must  die 
that  he  may  live ;  must  be  humiliated  that  he  may  be 
exalted  ;  must  depart  that  he  may  abide  forever.  Such  a 
departure  does  not  bring  darkness,  but  light.  It  is  itself 
illuminating.  Not  to  see  the  glory  in  self-sacrifice,  in 
death,  in  the  cross,  is  to  be  blind.  To  see  it  and  follow  it 
is  to  go  into  ever  clearer  light,  to  receive  ever  clearer 
vision.  It  is  to  become  a  child  of  the  light ;  born  of  light ; 
possessor  of  the  same  glory.  For  it  is  by  reflecting  as 
from  a  mirror  this  image  of  the  Lord  that  we  are  changed 
into  the  same  image,  from  glory  to  glory.^  The  man  who 
cannot  see  this  glory,  or,  seeing,  does  not  aspire  to  possess 
it  and  does  not  follow  after  to  attain  it,  need  not  be  judged 
by  another  ;  he  is  self-judged.  Life  and  light  have  come 
into  the  world,  and  he  will  have  none  of  them.  He  is  self- 
blinded,  self-condemned,  and  self-punished. 

Something  like  this  seems  to  me  the  monologue  of 
Christ,  inspired  by  the  coming  of  the  Greeks  to  see  him. 

^zCor.  iii.,  18,  New  Version. 


CHAPTER   XXXVI.— PROPHECY    OF   THE 
SECOND    COMING  1 

Matt.,  chaps,  xxiv.  and  xxv. 


The  disciples,  like  most  pious  Jews,  I  might  almost  say 
like  most  pious  people  even  now,  confounded  religion  with 
its  instruments  and  symbols.  Religion  was  identified  in 
their  minds  with  Jerusalem,  the  Temple,  the  priests,  the 
sacrificial  system.  So  we  identify  religion  with  our  churches, 
our  liturgies,  our  prayer-meetings,  our  creeds.  It  is  diffi-cult 
for  a  Roman  Catholic  to  comprehend  how  one  can  be 
religious  and  not  reverence  the  host ;  for  an  Episcopalian 
to  recognize  the  religion  of  one  who  does  not  appreciate 
the  service  ;  for  a  Puritan  to  believe  one  is  religious  who 
does  not  care  for  a  prayer-meeting ;  for  a  Calvinistto  think 
that  religion  can  survive  if  the  Calvinistic  creed  should 
suffer  demolition.  It  was,  in  like  manner,  almost  impos- 
sible for  a  devout  Jew  to  believe  that  religion  could  survive 
if  the  Temple  and  its  system  were  destroyed.  This  was 
the  charge  against  Stephen,  that  he  blasphemed — that  is, 
spoke  against  religion — because  he  asserted  that  the  Tem- 
ple would  be  destroyed  and  the  customs  of  Moses  changed."^ 
When,  therefore,  Christ  told  the  disciples  that  the  Temple 
would  be  so  utterly  destroyed  that  not  one  stone  would  be 
left  upon  another,  awestruck,  they  identified  this  destruc- 
tion of  the  Holy  City  with  the  end  of  the  world  and 
that  revelation  of  the  Messiah  on  which  their  hopes  of  a 
greater  city  and  an  imperial  dominion  depended.  When, 
cried  they,  will  Jerusalem  be  destroyed  ?  and  the  present 
dispensation  of  pagan  authority  end  ?  and  thou  reveal  thy- 

1  The  limitations  of  space  forbid  entering  in  these  articles  into  debatable 

f[uestions  in  interpretation.  Some  scholars  regard  Matthew  xxiv.  as  a  prophecy 
ulfilled  in  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem.  This  view  and  the  grounds  for  it  will 
be  found  Well  stated  by  Mr.  Barnes  in  his  Commentary;  the  grounds  for  the 
view  here  taken  will  be  found  in  Alford's  Greek  Testament  and  in  my  Com- 
mentary on  Matthew. 

"  Acts  vi.,  14.    This  was  also  the  charge  against  Christ  himself.    See  Matt, 
xxvi.,  61. 

139 


I40  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

self  ?  These  questions  were  poured  in  upon  Christ  eagerly 
by  men  who  regarded  them  all  as  different  forms  of  the  same 
question.  Christ's  answer  bids  them  distinguish  ;  assures 
them  that  the  end  of  Jerusalem  is  not  the  end  of  the  world, 
nor  to  be  accompanied  by  that  revelation  of  himself  which 
they  impatiently  urge  upon  him. 

Be  not  deceived,  he  says;  there  must  be  wars,  and  perse- 
cutions, and  false  doctrine,  and  apostasies,  and  the  procla- 
mation of  the  Gospd  throughout  the  world  before  the  end 
can  come  (chap,  xxiv.,  4-14).  When,  therefore,  you  see  the 
Roman  flags  flying  on  the  holy  hil),  do  not  think  the  day  of 
Israel's  vindication  has  arrived,  nor  believe  when  men  shall 
tell  you  that  the  Messiah  is  at  hand.  Flee  from  the  doomed 
city  to  the  mountains  (chap,  xxiv.,  15-26).  For  when  the 
Messiah  is  revealed  there  will  be  no  room  to  doubt.  That 
revelation  will  be  sudden  and  self-evidencing,  like  the  glare 
of  the  lightning  when  it  lights  up  the  whole  heavens  (chap, 
xxiv.,  27).  Not  till  after  this  long  period  of  tribulations, 
wars,  persecutions,  false  doctrine,  apostasies — not  without 
such  signs  that  they  who  dread  the  Messiah's  coming  will 
be  compelled  to  recognize  him — will  be  the  revelation  of 
his  kingdom.  And  this  Jewish  race,^  though  exiled  and 
scattered,  shall  not  pass  away  till  that  revelation  is  ful- 
filled (chap,  xxiv.,  28-35).  Coming  suddenly,  it  will  come 
as  a  day  of  judgment ;  it  will  come,  finding  men  not  looking 
for  it,  nor  prepared  for  it;  it  will  find  them  in  their  usual 
employments,  and  its  measurements  of  character  will  be  as 
surprising  as  its  advent  (chap,  xxiv.,  36-44).  It  will  find 
men  judging  themselves  and  each  other  by  their  power  to 
acquire  and  to  control ;  counting  those  men  great  who 
have  great  wealth  and  exercise  great  mastery.  It  will 
bring  to  bear  a  new  standard  of  judgment :  one  which 
will  count  him  only  faithful  and  wise  who  uses  his 
power  and  possessions  to  serve  others,  and  will  condemn 
him  who  has  used  the  one  tyrannically  to  smite  his 
fellow-servants,  or  the  other  in  self-indulgence  to  drink 
with  the  drunken  (chap,  xxiv.,  45-51).  It  will  find  the 
professed  virgins  of  the  bridegroom  waiting  for  his  coming. 
But  some  of  them  will  have  fancied  that  they  can  obtain  in 
one  instantaneous  conversion  grace  for  life,  death,  and 
eternity ;  while  others  will  know  that  they  must  pray,  Give 

^  Generation  in  verse  34  is  properly  race. 


PROPHECY    OF    THE    SECOND    COMING 


141 


US  day  by  day  our  daily  bread ;  will  know  that  to  light  the 
lamp  is  not  enough,  it  must  be  kept  trimmed  and  burning; 
will  know  that  to  be  Christ's  one  must  abide  with  Christ. 
These  will  go  in  with  the  bridegroom  to  the  supper,  those 
will  be  left  without  (chap,  xxv.,  1-13).  This  day  of  the 
Lord  will  find  degrees  of  faithfulness  even  among  the  faith- 
ful servants ;  and  their  future  station  and  service  will  be 
awarded  accordingly.  For  it  is  fidelity  in  little  things 
which  demonstrates  capacity  for  greater  service  ;  while  he 
who  thinks  that  he  is  virtuous  simply  because  he  is  not 
corrupt,  and  imagines  that  he  is  entitled  to  acquittal  be- 
cause he  fancies  he  has  done  no  harm,  will  learn  that  to 
be  useless  is  to  be  guilty  (chap,  xxv.,  14-30).  For  we 
are  put  into  life  that  by  love  we  may  serve  one  another ; 
and  the  test  of  life,  as  it  will  be  revealed  in  that  great  day, 
will  not  be  creeds,  ceremonies,  professions,  or  even  con- 
scious service  of  Christ,  but  the  possession  of  a  spirit  like 
his,  which  feeds  the  hungry,  clothes  the  naked,  and  visits 
the  stranger,  the  sick,  and  the  captive. 

I  have  assumed  in  this  interpretation  that  in  these  chap- 
ters Christ  does  foretell  a  real  Second  Coming  of  Himself 
to  the  earth.  There  are  several  canons  to  be  observed  in 
interpreting  an  enigmatical  address  like  this :  for  all 
prophecies  are  in  some  measure  enigmatical.  First,  we 
may  consider  how  the  immediate  auditors  understood  it. 
It  is  evident  from  abundant  indications  that  the  disciples 
understood  that  Christ  foretold  a  Second  Coming,  and  in 
the  anticipation  of  that  Coming  they,  and  the  generations 
immediately  following,  constantly  lived.  We  may  consider 
how  the  speaker  must  have  expected  to  be  understood. 
Any  one  v/ho  is  familiar  with  the  current  beliefs  of  Christ's 
time  will  find  it  difficult  to  see  how  the  disciples  could 
have  understood  this  discourse  otherwise  than  as  a  prophecy 
of  his  real  and  apparent  Second  Coming.  We  may  try  to 
divest  ourselves  of  all  prepossessions  and  take  the  words 
of  the  address  in  their  most  natural  meaning.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  one  who  thus  reads  these  chapters  will  get  as  his 
first  impression  that  of  a  prophecy  of  a  Second  Coming 
and  a  Final  Judgment.  It  requires  considerable  ingenuity 
of  interpretation  to  find  in  them  any  other  meaning.  We 
may  look  at  the  discourse  as  a  whole  and  see  what  was  its 
moral  lesson,  and  interpret  the  discourse  by  the  apparent 


142  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

object  of  the  speaker.  The  moral  lesson  of  this  discourse 
is  several  times  repeated  :  "  Watch,  for  ye  know  neither 
the  day  nor  the  hour  when  the  Son  of  man  cometh." 
But  if  he  is  not  coming,  there  is  no  pertinence  in  this  ex- 
hortation to  watch.  Tne  Second  Adventists  appear  to  me 
to  have  fallen  into  an  error  in  endeavoring  to  ascertain  the 
day  and  the  hour,  which  Christ  declares  are  unknown  even 
to  the  angels.^  Their  opponents  have  fallen  into  a  like  error 
in  declaring  sometimes  that  there  is  no  such  day,  some- 
times that  it  is  past,  and  sometimes  that  it  is  far  away  in 
the  future.  In  either  case  there  is  no  significance  in  the 
command,  Watch.  The  one  have  erred  by  giving  a  literal 
interpretation  to  prophecies  which  are  poetical  and  pic- 
torial, addressed  to  the  imagination  and  to  be  interpreted 
by  the  imagination.  The  other  have  erred  by  practically 
erasing  those  prophecies  from  their  Bible  altogether.  That, 
as  the  Old  Testament  epiphanies  were  a  preparation  for 
the  New  Testament  epiphany,  so  the  New  Testament 
epiphany  is  a  preparation  for  an  epiphany  yet  to  come  ; 
that  the  Church  is  to  turn  its  face  toward  the  future  and 
live  in  expectation  ;  that  its  attitude  is  to  be  as  far  removed 
from  that  of  prying  curiosity  on  the  one  hand  as  from  that 
of  skeptical  indifference  on  the  other;  that  it  is  to  watch 
for  the  coming  without  undertaking  to  determine  what 
the  Master  has  left  undetermined,  How  and  When  the 
Coming  will  be — this  seems  to  me  the  clear  teaching  of 
this  great  discourse. 

1  Matt,  xxiv.,  36 ;  Mark  xiii.,  32. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIL— THE  LAST  SUPPER 

Mark  xiv.,  12-26;  Luke  xxii.,  24-30;  John  xiii.,  1-30;  Matt,  xxvi., 

26-30 


As  in  the  house  of  Simon  the  Pharisee  the  villagers 
gathered  in  the  courtyard  and  looked  on  and  listtned 
while  Christ  sat  at  supper  with  his  host  and  his  friends, 
so  we  gather  in  an  outer  court  that  we  may  look  on  at  this 
Last  Supper  and  listen  to  these  last  words  of  the  Master 
to  his  friends.  The  sun  had  sunk  behind  the  hills.  The 
twelve  had  gathered  in  an  upper  chamber  prepared  for 
them.  In  the  East  even  to-day  places  at  the  table  are  as- 
signed according  to  the  rank  of  those  who  sit  at  it.  Each 
man  has  his  proper  place.  Before  the  supper  began,  the 
twelve  wrangled  with  one  another  as  to  who  was  entitled  to 
the  best  place  at  the  table.  One  can  almost  see  Jesus 
pacing  the  room,  or  standing  looking  out  through  the 
darkening  window,  while  the  unseemly  quarrel  goes  on. 
He  says  no  word ;  lets  the  fire  burn  itself  out ;  and  when 
at  last  they  have  adjusted  it,  takes  his  seat,  John  at  Jesus's 
right  hand  leaning  upon  his  bosom,  Judas  at  Christ's  left 
hand,  Christ  leaning  upon  him. 

Christ  took  his  seat,  pronounced  the  blessins:,  began  the 
supper,  still  said  no  word  of  rebuke.  In  the  East  the  feet 
are  not  shod,  as  with  us,  with  shoes ;  they  are  sandaled  ; 
and  it  is  as  much  a  matter  of  decency  to  wash  the  naked 
feet  before  the  meal  as  with  us  to  wash  the  hands.  It  is 
a  part  of  the  hospitality  of  the  host  to  provide  water  and  a 
servant  who  shall  wash  the  hot  and  dusty  feet  before  the 
meal  begins.  The  disciples  in  their  quarrel  for  precedence 
never  had  thought  of  that,  and,  with  their  feet  still  soiled, 
sat,  or  rather  reclined,  in  Oriental  fashion,  at  the  supper- 
table.  Then  Christ  arose,  still  said  nothing,  laid  off  his 
outer  cloak,  took  a  towel,  wrapped  it  round  his  waist, 
took  a  basin  and  a  ewer  of  water  which  the  host  had  pro- 
vided for  the  purpose,  poured  water  in  the  basin,  and, 

143 


144  ^^^    l^IFE    OF    CHRIST 

going  to  one  end  of  the  table,  began  to  wash  the  disciples* 
feet.  They  were  silent ;  they  dared  not  speak,  and  he  did 
not.  No  word  from  any  one  until  he  came  to  Peter,  who 
could  not  endure  it,  and  broke  the  painful  silence.  "  Thou 
shalt  never  wash  my  feet,"  he  said.  *'  If  I  wash  thee  not," 
replied  Christ,  ''thou  hast  no  part  with  me."  The  disci- 
ple must  accept  Christ's  rebuke,  since  Christ's  love  chooses 
to  inspire  it.  His  sovereignty  brooks  no  questioning. 
Peter  yielded,  though  not  without  one  more  ineffectual 
remonstrance.  "If  my  feet,  why  not  my  face  and  my 
hands?"  he  said.  Christ  finished  the  washing,  interpreted 
the  lesson  involved,  and  sat  down  again. 

But  he  could  not  talk  with  freedom,  for  there  was  one 
traitor  in  the  room,  and  the  sense  of  the  wickedness  of  that 
traitor  paralyzed  the  tongue  that  nothing  but  intolerable 
crime  could  paralyze.  He  resolved  that  the  traitor  should 
leave  the  room  before  the  last  sacred  conference  was  had. 
"  One  of  you  here  at  this  table,"  he  said,  "  shall  betray  m.e." 
They  were  filled  with  consternation  ;  but  they  could  not 
forget  their  unseemly  controversy  ;  they  could  not  forget 
that  feet- washing ;  they  could  not  at  once  resent  the  impu- 
tation ;  no  !  the  lesson  was  too  recent  and  was  burned  too 
deeply  in  their  hearts;  and  so,  instead  of  denying,  they 
questioned.  "  Lord,  is  it  I,  is  it  I  ?"  went  round  the  room. 
Peter  beckoned  to  John,  lying  on  Christ's  bosom,  to  "find 
out  who  it  was  that  should  betray;"  and  John,  turning  to 
Jesus,  said,  "  Lord,  who  is  it .-"'  But  still  Jesus  answered 
not ;  he  could  not  betray  even  the  secret  of  the  betrayer. 
It  was  customary  in  the  East,  and  particularly  in  the  Pas- 
chal service,  for  the  administrator  of  the  service  to  dip  a 
morsel  of  bread  in  a  cup  and  pass  it  to  his  friends.  Jesus 
simply  said  :  "  He  to  whom  I  shall  give  this  sop,  when  I  have 
dipped  it,  will  betray  me."  But  he  will  give  it  to  them  all. 
He  only  said  what  he  had  said  before.  Then  he  dipped 
it  and  handed  it  first  to  Judas,  who  must  have  been  close 
at  hand  to  have  received  it  from  the  very  hand  of  Jesus. 
Judas  knew  what  the  rest  did  not  know.  Thunderstruck, 
angered,  wrathful  at  the  exposure  of  a  secret  which  he 
supposed  was  locked  up  in  his  own  breast,  he  breathed  out, 
stammeringly,  "Is  it  I?"  Quietly  Christ  replied  to  him, 
"Thou  hast  said;"  and  then — the  traitor  still  sitting 
there — uttered  openly  the  words,  and  with  vigor  :  "  What 


THE    LAST    SUPPER  1 45 

thou  doest,  do  quickly."  The  angered  traitor  left  the 
room  ;  anojered  because  he  thought  he  had  been  exposed 
before  them  all,  not  comprehending  the  love  that  even  to 
the  last  covered  his  sin  and  left  his  purpose  undisclosed 
to  the  other  eleven. 

In  the  Paschal  supper  there  was  a  ritual  prescribed, 
partly  by  Jewish  custom  and  partly  by  the  old-time  law. 
As  the  father  sat  with  his  children  around  the  table  and 
passed  the  bread  to  them,  they  were  bid  to  ask,  What 
meaneth  this?  and  then  he  was  to  say  to  them,  "This 
bread  is  the  unleavened  bread  that  was  broken  in  the 
wilderness  ;  this  lamb  is  the  lamb  that  was  slain  in  Egypt ; 
this  wine  is  the  wine  of  the  covenant  which  God  made  with 
your  fathers."  When  they  came  to  this  ritual  in  the 
supper  that  night,  Christ  changed  it.  As  he  passed  the 
bread  to  them,  he  said,  not,  "  This  is  the  unleavened  bread 
which  your  fathers  ate  in  the  wilderness,"  but,  "This  bread 
is  my  body  broken  for  you."  i^s  he  passed  the  cup,  he 
said,  not,  "  This  cup  is  the  cup  oi  the  covenant  which  the 
God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  made  to  your  children 
in  Egypt,"  but,  "  This  cup  is  the  new  covenant  in  my 
blood  which  is  shed  for  you  ;"  and  then  he  added  the  last 
dying  request — the  only  request  he  ever  made  of  his  fol- 
lowers— "  This  do  in  remembrance  of  me." 

I  am  not  going  to  enter  here  into  a  doctrinal  discussion 
of  the  significance  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  Yet  I  pause  a 
moment  to  note  what  singular  growths  have  come  out  of  this 
very  simple  incident.  We  have  required  that  men  should 
be  members  of  a  church  before  they  can  sit  down  at  this 
Supper.  But  these  twelve  were  not  members  of  a  Chris- 
tian church.  No  Christian  church  had  been  organized. 
We  have  required  that  they  should  assent  to  a  creed  with 
certain  fundamental  articles.  These  twelve  had  assented 
to  no  creed,  to  no  fundamental  articles.  We  have  required 
that  they  should  be  baptized.  There  is  no  adequate  evi- 
dence that  any  one  of  these  had  ever  received  any  kind  of 
baptism,  and  only  an  indication  that  four  of  them  had  been 
baptized  by  John,  not  one  of  them  baptized  into  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the 
Holy  Ghost.  We  have  made  it  a  Church  ordinance,  to  be 
administered  only  in  the  church  and  by  a  priest  or  minis- 
ter.    But  the  Paschal  Supper  was  a  family,  not  a  Church, 


146  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

celebration,  and  the  Paschal  lamb  was  slain,  not  by  the 
priest,  but  by  some  member  of  the  family,  usually  the  father. 
The  Lord's  Supper  as  Christ  instituted  it  was  a  simple, 
social  meal.  The  only  condition  he  attached  to  his  invita- 
tion was  a  loving  memory.  He  would  have  only  loyal  ones 
sit  at  that  Paschal  table.  He  would  have  only  those  that 
had  sworn  to  follow  him  to  the  death.  Not  even  his 
mother  sat  with  him ;  and  the  traitor  was  exiled  from  the 
table  before  the  bread  was  broken  or  the  cup  was  passed. 
Then  the  one — the  only,  the  last,  the  dying — request  of 
Christ  was  given  to  his  friends :  "  Do  this  in  remembrance 
of  me."  If  they  had  built  some  great  monument,  how  we 
would  have  traveled  longingly  that  we  might  look  upon  it ! 
But  had  it  been  built,  the  ram  and  the  wind  and  the  frost 
would  have  eaten  into  it,  and  obliterated  and  destroyed  it. 
Had  he  said,  "  Build  me  some  fine  cathedral  that  shall  stand 
as  a  memory  to  me,"  how  we  would  have  poured  our  contri- 
butions that  somewhere  in  this  world  there  might  be  a 
central  temple,  over  which  the  cross  on  which  he  hung 
should  stand  throughout  the  ages !  But  the  cathedral 
would  have  passed  into  the  hands  of  men  corrupted  by 
ambition,  and  belittled  by  narrowness,  and  hardened  by 
dogmatism.  He  made  his  monument  of  loving  hearts. 
Only  this  do:  sometimes  sit  down  together;  sometimes 
remember  that  last  occasion  when  I  grasped  the  hands  of 
those  I  loved,  looked  into  their  faces,  and  heard  their  voices  ; 
sometimes  sit  at  a  supper-table,  eat  and  drink  and  think 
of  me.  Christ  longs  to  be  remembered,  as  love  always 
longs  to  be  remembered.  He  wanted  not  his  grave  to  be 
obliterated  from  the  earth  and  trodden  under  foot  of  men, 
as  if  it  were  an  indifferent  thing ;  he  wanted  not  his  name 
to  be  blotted  out  of  human  memory  or  his  personality  to 
be  forgotten  from  throbbing  hearts.  He  commands  us  in 
many  things,  he  guides  us  in  many  things,  he  gives  us 
opportunity  to  serve  his  children,  his  poor,  in  many  ways  ; 
but  there  is  only  one  personal  request  he  makes  of  us — 
that,  from  time  to  time,  at  some  supper-table,  with  simply 
bread  and  wine,  we  shall,  as  they  that  love  him  have 
throughout  all  ages,  perpetuate  his  memory,  and  show  that 
we  care  for  his  person. 


CHAPTER   XXXVIII.— THE   LAST    DISCOURSE 

John  xiii.,  31-35,  and  xiv.,  xv.,  xvi.,  xvii. 


With  reverent  reluctance  I  approach  the  sacred  hour 
in  which  Christ,  gathering  the  faithful  eleven  about  him, 
discourses  to  them  of  the  most  sacred  experiences  in  the 
divine  life,  and  in  the  only  recorded  prayer  of  any  length 
opens  his  heart  to  them  in  opening  it  to  his  Father.  If 
space  permitted,  I  should  prefer  simply  to  print  this 
discourse  and  prayer,  in  perhaps  slightly  different  form 
from  that  of  our  English  Bible ;  but  I  must  content  my- 
self with  endeavoring  in  an  abbreviated  paraphrase  to 
indicate  its  great  truths,  conscious  how  imperfectly  I  under- 
stand Him,  and  how  imperfectly  I  must  interpret  even  my 
own  understanding. 

The  shadow  of  impending  deaf-h  was  falling  upon  the 
group.  At  last  even  they  began  .0  comprehend.  With 
but  the  vaguest  hope  of  immortality,  with  a  half-pagan 
faith  in  a  Hades  in  which  the  dead  waited  in  shadowy 
forms  for  a  future  resurrection,  death  could  not  but  be  to 
them,  what,  alas !  it  still  remains  to  most  of  us,  the  great 
separation.  Jesus,  with  that  genius  of  sympathy  so  char- 
acteristic of  him,  begins  by  entering  into  this  "horror  of 
a  great  darkness  "  which  is  beginning  to  settle  down  upon 
them.     But  he  enters  bearing  the  light  of  a  bright  hope. 

Do  not  think,  he  says,  that  this  beautiful  world  is  the 
only  abode  of  the  living.  God  has  in  his  universe  many 
dwelling-places.  I  am  going  to  prepare  a  dwelling-place 
for  you,  and  will  return  again  and  take  you  to  myself  to  be 
with  me.  And  do  you  not  at  last  begin  to  understand  who 
I  am  ? — the  revelation  of  the  Father,  the  One  in  whom  he 
dwells  and  by  whom  he  is  made  known  to  you.  No  longer 
shall  I  be  with  you  on  the  earth ;  but  another  Strength- 
giver  shall  be  at  your  side  to  answer  to  your  call.^     He 

^  Comforter  is  strength-giver.    The  original,  "  Paraclete,"  means  one  who 
comes  at  another's  call. 

147 


14^  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

will  ever  dwell  with  you  ;  unseen  by  the  world  and  there- 
fore by  the  world  unknown  ?  but  not  to  you  unknown  ;  for 
he  will  dwell  within  you.  And  in  Him  I  shall  be  with  you, 
the  life  of  your  life.  How?  That  I  cannot  explain  to 
you;  only  this  I  can  say,  If  you  love  me,  you  will  keep  my 
commandments ;  and  if  you  love  me  and  keep  my  com- 
mandments, you  will  know  this  experience  of  the  indwell- 
ing of  the  Divine  Spirit.  He  will  bring  you  light,  peace, 
courage,  and  joy. 

I  in  Him,  He  in  me,  we  in  all  my  disciples — this  will 
make  them  all  one ;  a  vine — each  disciple  a  branch  kept 
alive  by  dwelling  in  me,  kept  in  unity  with  the  other 
branches  because  they  all  thus  dwell  in  me.  Thus  I  shall 
still  dwell  in  the  world,  incarnate  in  my  disciples,  who  are 
my  Church,  and  who,  however  different  their  religious 
forms,  are  one  in  their  love  and  loyalty  and  their  fellowship 
with  me.  The  life  of  this  Church  is  love,  and  its  fruit  is 
love — the  consciousness  of  my  love,  and  of  my  Father's 
love,  and  the  spirit  of  love  toward  one  another ;  love  as  I 
have  illustrated  it,  love  that  lays  down  life  for  others,  love 
in  self-sacrifice.  But  this  love  the  world  does  not  and  will 
not  understand.  It  has  repaid  my  love  with  hate.  It  will 
repay  yours  with  hate.  Do  not  imagine  that  love  always 
kindles  love,  nor  be  amazed  when  hate  and  bitter  persecu- 
tion come. 

I  am  going  away,  and  you  are,  I  see,  filled  with  sorrow. 
But  it  is  for  your  benefit  I  am  going.  If  I  were  in  the  body, 
you  could  not  receive  that  higher  inspiration  which  comes 
from  a  bodiless,  invisible,  spiritual  Presence.  The  Spirit 
will  come  :  He  will  make  the  world  see  that  it  was  sinful, 
or  it  would  not  have  rejected  such  an  One  as  I ;  He  will 
make  the  world  understand  righteousness,  for  after  I  am 
gone  it  will  begin  to  study  my  character,  as  it  will  not  and 
cannot  while  I  am  here;  He  will  make  the  world  under- 
stand the  principles  of  divine  judgment,  for  it  will  see 
what  value  to  put  on  the  religion  which  builds  synagogues 
and  conducts  sacrificial  services,  but  crucifies  Love.  And 
He  will  be  your  Teacher  ;  and  you  will  be  wiser  for  my 
going,  and  will  understand  me  better.  Your  sorrow  will 
become  a  bitter  anguish  ;  I  know  that ;  but  it  will  be  the 
anguish  of  travail,  out  of  which  will  be  born  a  new-created 
world.    For  sorrow  is  the  mother  of  joy.    So  sorrow  and  joy 


THE    LAST    DISCOURSE 


149 


will  go  together  in  your  life :  sorrow  in  the   world,  joy  in 
me.     But  be  of  good  cheer,  I  have  overcome  the  world. 

If  reverence  hesitates  to  interpret  Christ's  most  sacred 
discourse,  it  may  well  hesitate  still  more  to  interpret  his 
prayer.  I  shall  here  only  suggest  to  the  reader  two  or 
three  reflections  concerning  it. 

What  is  commonly  known  as  the  Lord's  Prayer  is  not  a 
true  interpretation  of  Christ's  spiritual  desires  for  his  dis- 
ciples. The  Twelve  came  to  him  early  in  his  ministry  for 
a  ritual.  He  gave  them  a  prayer  which,  with  wonderful 
simplicity  and  brevity,  summed  up  the  common  desires,  I 
will  not  say  of  humanity,  rather  of  the  devout  Jew.  These 
were  desires  for  the  coming  of  the  kingdom,  for  daily  bread, 
for  forgiveness  of  sin,  for  guidance  in  a  safe  and  peaceful 
life,  and  for  deliverance  from  the  Evil  One.  But  when 
in  this  last  interview  with  his  disciples  he  poured  out  his 
own  heart  in  prayer  for  his  disciples,  his  petitions  took  on, 
not  only  a  different  form,  but  a  different  character.  He 
does  not  pray  for  the  coming  of  the  kingdom,  for  it  has 
already  come;  it  is  in  the  hearts  of  his  loyal  followers. 
He  does  not  ask  for  daily  bread ;  he  cares  very  little  for 
comfortable  maintenance  here  below.  Nor  for  forgiveness ; 
his  disciples  are  already  forgiven,  reconciled  unto  the 
Father,  their  sins  blotted  out,  and  they  in  filial  fellowship 
with  their  God.  He  does  not  ask  for  a  safe  and  peaceful 
guidance  from  all  temptation ;  on  the  contrary,  he  says 
expressly  that  he  does  not  desire  to  take  his  loved  ones 
out  of  the  world — the  hating,  persecuting,  tempting  world. 
There  is  but  one  petition  common  to  both  prayers — the 
prayer  of  the  devout  Jew  and  the  prayer  of  the  Lord  for 
his  own — the  petition,  Deliver  us  from  the  Evil  One.  Thus 
this  prayer  begins  where  the  earlier  prayer  ends;  and  it 
goes  on  to  present  three  other  petitions  for  the  disciples 
throughout  all  time :  Sanctification  and  consecration  unto 
and  in  the  truth ;  the  perfect  unity  of  love,  in  God  and 
with  one  another ;  and  spiritual  appreciation  of  and  partici- 
pation in  the  glory  of  the  Father  and  the  Son — the  glory 
of  love,  service,  and  self-sacrifice,  the  glory  manifested  in 
the  passion  and  death  of  the  Christ. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX.— GETHSEMANE 

Mark  xiv.,  32-52 


Christ's  last  discourse  to  his  disciples  ended,  he  left  the 
room  where  they  had  been  gathered  and  went  with  them 
out  of  the  Temple  gate — the  same  he  had  entered  four 
days  before  in  triumph — crossed  the  brook  Kedron,  and 
found  in  one  of  the  gardens  which  covered  the  slope  of 
the  Mount  of  Olives  a  quiet  retreat.  We  may  well  believe 
that  it  was  a  favorite  spot  with  him,  and  one  where  he  was 
accustomed  to  seek,  sometimes  absolute  solitude,  some- 
times that  opportunity  for  quiet  converse  with  his  disci- 
ples which  the  crowded  city  refused  him.  The  moon  was 
at  its  full,  and  its  rays,  struggHng  through  the  heavy  foliage 
of  the  vines  and  olive-trees  which  constituted  the  roof  of 
his  rural  sanctuary,  filled  it  with  those  shadov/s  which  at 
once  add  to  the  solemnity  and  minister  to  the  sorrow  of  such 
an  hour.  The  garden  was  probably  known  to  Judas  as  a 
probable  place  in  which  to  find  Jesus;  the  events  of  the 
night  justify  this  supposition.  Chribt  guarded  against  sur- 
prise. Taking  his  three  most  trusted  friends,  he  bade  them 
watch  as  sentinels  while  he,  withdrawing  from  them,  gave 
himself  to  prayer.  Often  in  Galilee  had  he  left  them  sleep- 
ing in  their  burnooses  upon  the  ground,  or  in  some  hospi- 
table hamlet,  while  he  went  up  to  one  of  the  neighboring 
hilltops  to  pray ;  but  never  before  had  it  been  necessary  to 
protect  his  devotions  from  hostile  intrusion.  What  would 
have  occurred,  what  change  in  the  course  and  effect  of  his 
ministry  would  have  been  produced,  had  they  been  faithful 
to  their  trust  and  warned  him  of  the  traitor's  approach, 
who  can  tell }  Certain  it  is  that,  humanly  speaking,  Christ's 
arrest  at  that  time,  and  all  the  events  which  followed,  were 
due  to  their  failure  to  keep  watch  while  their  Master  prayed. 
I  note  the  fact,  leaving  the  reader  to  reflect  upon  its  sig- 
nificance and  to  consider  v/hether  its  analogue  is  not  to  be 

150 


GETHSEMANE  151 

found  more  than  once  in  the  subsequent  history  of   the 
Christian  Church. 

I  shall  make  no  attempt  in  this  paper  to  penetrate  the 
sacred  reserv^e  which  the  simple  Gospel  narrative  has 
thrown  about  that  hour  of  prayer.  Into  the  scene  from 
which  the  beloved  disciple  was  excluded  we  may  well  hesi- 
tate to  enter.  But  enough  of  that  hour  of  mystery  and  strug- 
gle has  been  recorded  to  made  a  few  reflections  clear — 
reflections  worthy  our  frequent  pondering,  simple  and  self- 
evident  though  they  be.  The  sufferer  looked  forward  with 
clear  vision  and  inexpressible  dread  upon  the  awful  events 
of  the  morrow.  His  was  not  a  stoic's  nature  ;  it  was  sen- 
sitive to  the  physical  pain,  and  still  more  to  the  storm  of 
hate  and  execration  which  was  to  break  upon  him,  and  to 
the  personal  shame  and  indignity  which  he  was  to  endure. 
"  Father,"  he  cried,  "  if  it  be  possible,  let  this  cup  pass 
from  me."  It  was  possible  ;  he  knew  that  it  was  possible  ; 
but  possible  only  by  the  abandonment  of  his  life  purpose  ; 
and  that  he  would  not  abandon.  Apparently  he  had  but 
to  choose  to  escape  and  the  way  of  escape  would  be  opened 
to  him.  For  even  with  the  guards  closing  around  him,  he 
said  to  Peter  :  "  Thinkest  thou  that  I  cannot  now  pray  to 
my  Father  and  he  shall  presently  give  me  more  than  twelve 
legions  of  angels }"  But,  as  a  captain  will  not  desert  his 
sinking  ship,  nor  a  general  his  defeated  army,  in  order  to 
save  himself,  even  though  treachery  has  brought  wreck  to 
the  one  or  ruin  to  the  other,  so  Christ  would  not  desert 
humanity,  nor  seek  escape  by  any  method  which  did  not 
bring  deliverance  to  the  whole  race.  Shrink  as  he  might 
from  the  hour  of  crucifixion,  he  never  thought  of  escaping 
it  by  recreant  flight.  Always  his  prayer  came  back  to  the 
one  culminating  petition  :  "  Thy  will,  not  mine,  be  done." 
This  is  more  than  resignation.  To  be  resigned  is  to 
accept,  without  complaining,  the  inevitable  will  of  God. 
Christ  prayed  that  God's  will  might  be  accomplished.  His 
supreme  desire  was  that  his  own  desire  might  not  counter- 
vail his  Father's  wiser,  stronger  purpose.  Gethsemane 
gives  a  sublime  but  awful  interpretation  to  the  so  often 
carelessly  uttered  petition,  "Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as 
it  is  in  heaven."  It  is  in  turn  itself  interpreted  by  the 
lines  of  Faber : 

God's  will  is  sweetest  to  him  when 
It  triumphs  at  his  cost. 


1$2  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

The  struggle  was  real ;  but  in  a  soul  whose  supreme  desire 
is  to  know  and  do  God's  will,  the  issue  of  such  a  struggle 
is  never  doubtful. 

Twice  Christ  comes  to  his  disciples.  Is  it  for  their 
sympathy  ?  or  is  it  to  ascertain  whether  they  are  watching  .? 
Does  his  careful  love  admonish  him  to  take  these  precau- 
tions that  they  may  not  share  his  arrest  and  peril  ?  The 
first  time  he  awakes  them.  The  second  time  he  leaves 
them  sleeping  undisturbed.  At  length  he  sees  from  his 
shadowed  retreat  the  light  of  torches  gleaming  across  the 
intervening  valley,  and  hears  the  measured  tread  which 
tokens  the  advance  of  soldiers.  Even  now  he  might  have 
escaped  and  left  the  slumberous  disciples  to  their  fate. 
But  this  does  not  even  seem  to  occur  to  him.  He  goes 
forth  hurriedly,  awakens  his  recreant  watch  with  a  sentence 
whose  reproach  they  could  never  have  forgotten —"  Sleep 
on  now,  and  take  your  rest ;"  and  then,  with  a  word  of 
warning  which  thoroughly  arouses  them  and  drives  all 
sleep  from  their  heavy  eyes,  "  The  Son  of  man  is  betrayed 
into  the  hands  of  men  ;  arise,  let  us  be  going :  behold, 
he  is  at  hand  that  doth  betray  me,"  he  leaves  them  to 
come  to  their  startled  senses,  pushes  by  them,  and  by  the 
eight  who  from  their  sleep  on  the  ground  a  little  beyond 
are  struggling  into  consciousness,  and  puts  himself  between 
his  friends  and  the  temple  guard  led  by  the  traitor  Judas. 
The  latter  greets  his  Master  with  a  kiss,  but  even  his 
effrontery  can  find  no  response  to  the  rebuke  which  reveals 
to  all  Christ's  understanding  of  the  traitor's  treachery. 
The  guard,  startled  by  the  sudden  apparition,  and  yielding, 
as  more  than  once  before  mobs  had  yielded,  to  his  divine 
dignity,  fall  backward  before  him.  The  disciples,  inspired 
by  a  tardy  loyalty  and  a  false  expectation  of  a  supernatural 
deliverance,  are  eager  to  follow  up  the  advantage  and 
effect  a  rescue.  Peter  does  not  wait  for  permission — his 
sword  flashes  out  of  his  scabbard  in  a  futile  and  foolish 
act  of  resistance.  Christ  forbids  all  violence,  bids  Peter 
put  up  his  sword,  asks  of  his  captors  but  one  favor,  that 
his  disciples  be  suffered  to  depart  unmolested,  then  sur- 
renders himself  into  the  guards'  hands,  and  is  bound  and 
led  away.  Judas,  with  a  shamed  and  heavy  heart,  accom 
panies  the  band  to  the  court  whose  condemnation  of  Christ 
is  his  own  severe  condemnation.     Of  the  eleven  disciples 


GETHSEMA]^E  jc-, 

nine  flee  away.  Hiding  in  the  dark  shadows  of  the  trees 
and  beneath  the  overhanging  houses  of  the  streets,  two  of 
them  furtively  creep  after  the  prisoner  and  his  guard.  They 
are  Peter  and  John,  determined  to  see  the  final  issue  of  this 
fearful  night. 


CHAPTER    XL.— THE    COURT    OF    CATAPHAS 

John  xviii.,  12-24;  Mark  xiv.,  55-72  ;  Luke  xxii.,  66-71; 
Matt,  xxvii.,  3-10 


It  was  not  far  from  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the 
seventh  day  of  April,  in  the  thirty-fourth  year  of  the  Chris- 
tian era,  when  the  Sanhedrim  convened  in  the  council 
chamber  adjoining  the  Temple  for  the  most  momentous 
state  trial  histoiry  has  ever  recorded.-^  The  court  sat  in  a 
semicircle.  In  the  center  sat  the  high  priest.  If  he  was 
robed  on  that  night  as  he  was  on  ordinary  great  trials,  he 
wore  a  blue  turban  interwoven  with  gold,  a  blue  robe  with 
a  girdle  of  purple,  scarlet  and  gold  embroidery  about  his 
waist,  with  onyx  stones  for  buttons,  and  with  a  breastplate 
rich  and  radiant  with  jewels.  Two  scribes  sat  at  the  two 
ends  of  the  semicircle — one  to  take  down  the  testimony 
for  the  accused,  the  other  the  testimony  for  the  prosecu- 
tion. No  lawyers  were  allowed  for  the  defense ;  the  ac- 
cused must  defend  himself.  He  stood  before  them,  pale, 
emaciated,  weary  with  the  night's  watching,  but  strong 
with  that  calm  dignity  before  which  only  an  hour  earlier 
the  guard  had  fallen  backward  to  the  ground ;  before 
which  only  a  few  hours  later  Pilate,  the  Roman,  was  to 
tremble. 

In  the  sixteenth  century,  at  the  time  when  the  Pope  of 
Rome  claimed  the  allegiance  of  the  English  people,  it  was 
made  a  capital  offense  for  any  man  in  England  to  attempt 
to  divert  the  allegiance  of  the  English  people  from  the 
English  King.  So,  centuries  before,  it  had  been  made  a 
capital  offense  for  any  man  to  attempt  to  divert  the  alle- 
giance of  the  Jewish  people  from  Jehovah,  who  was  their 
King.  It  was  because  of  this  law  that  it  was  a  capital 
offense  to  practice  witchcraft  or  sorcery,  or  to  prophesy  in 

^  There  had  been  a  preUminary  informal  and  quite  irregular  examination  of 
the  prisoner  at  the  house  of  Annas.  It  was  here  that  Peter's  denial  ot  his 
Master  took  place.  From  this  examination  Christ  was  conducted  to  the  coun- 
cil chamber  for  the  formal  trial. 


THE    COURT    OF    CAIAPHAS  155 

the  name  of  any  other  God  than  Jehovah,  or  to  pretend  to 
work  miracles  in  the  name  of  another,  or  to  speak  in  God's 
name  what  God  had  not  ordered  to  be  spoken,  or  to  prac- 
tice idolatry,  or  to  urge  the  people  themselves  to  practice 
it.-^  It  was  under  these  statutes  in  the  Old  Testament 
that  Jesus  Christ  was  put  on  trial.  Although  the  historians 
have  kept  no  accurate  record  of  the  indictment,  it  is  easy 
for  us  to  frame  it.  We  have  only  to  go  to  subsequent 
rabbinical  authorities  and  see  what  charges  they  have 
brought  against  him. 

"Jesus,  son  of  Joseph,  thou  art  accused  of  having  con- 
spired against  the  government  and  endeavoring  to  usurp 
the  crown  of  Israel ;  confess  thy  crime,  and  acknowledge 
thyself  guilty  of  treason.  Charges  are  also  made  against 
thee  that  thou  hast  deceived  and  imposed  upon  the  people, 
making  them  believe  all  manner  of  superstitions,  and  tell- 
ing them  that  thou  canst  work  miracles,  and  that  the  whole 
world  of  demons  and  spirits  is  under  thy  control.  Thou 
knowest  it  is  strictly  forbidden  in  the  law  of  Moses  to 
resort  to  enchantments  or  divinations,  or  to  consult  with 
spirits ;  now,  therefore,  take  heed,  give  glory  to  God,  Lord 
God  of  Israel,  and  plead  guilty  to  the  charges  made  against 
thee.  If  thou  hadst  merely  slandered  the  banner-bearers 
of  Israel  and  endeavored  to  break  the  pillars  of  our  religion, 
we  could  have  extended  to  thee  pardon,  hadst  thou  re- 
pented— truly,  sincerely  repented  before  God  and  Israel ; 
but  as  thou  hast  repeatedly  said  to  the  people,  '  No  man 
knows  the  Father  but  the  Son,  and  to  whomsoever  the  Son 
will  reveal  him,'  such  a  heresy  cannot  be  pardoned,  but 
must  be  expiated  by  severe  punishment — even  by  death. 
Thou  knowest  it  is  recorded  in  the  Bible,  '  And  there  shall 
not  arise  any  prophet  in  Israel  like  Moses,  whom  the  Lord 
shall  know  face  to  face.'  Art  thou  greater  than  Moses, 
the  father  of  all  prophets  ?  Canst  or  didst  thou  give  us  a 
better  or  a  clearer  knowledge  of  our  heavenly  Father  ? 
Thou,  who  wast  conceived  in  sin  and  born  in  iniquity, 
darest  to  call  thyself  the  Son  of  God,  and  lead  the  people 
astray,  and  persuade  them  to  worship  thee,  as  if  thou  wert 
indeed  of  the  Almighty.  Oh,  blasphemy !  blasphemy ! 
Thou  art  a  false  prophet,  and,  according  to  the  sacred  law 

'  See  Exod.  xxi ,  20;   Lev.  xx.,  1-5;   Deut.  xiii.  ;  xvii.,  2-5;  xviii..  Q-22 : 
Lev,  xix.,  31. 


156  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

of  Moses,  thou  hast  forfeited  thy  life — thou  must  suffer  the 
punishment  of  being  stoned.  Hast  thou  anything  to  offer 
for  thy  defense  ?  If  so,  state  it  without  restraint  at  once, 
and  bring  forward  such  proof  as  thou  mayst  have  to  sus- 
tain thine  assertions  of  innocence." 

This  indictment,  which  I  transfer  to  these  pages  from  a 
modern  Jewish  life  of  Christ,^  is  not  a  historical  represen- 
tation of  the  indictment  actually  presented  in  the  Court  of 
Caiaphas,  but  it  may  be  assumed  to  be  a  true  transcript  of 
its  essential  charges  and  to  be  conceived  in  its  spirit. 

It  is  easy  for  us  also  to  imagine  the  evidence  gathered 
against  him.  It  could  be  proved  that  he  had  claimed  to 
be  king ;  that  he  had  proclaimed  laws  as  a  lawgiver ;  that 
he  had  set  himself  above  those  of  olden  time,  saying,  "  It 
has  been  said  to  you  of  olden  time,  but  I  say  unto  you  ;" 
that  he  had  entered  Jerusalem  riding  in  triumph  as  a  king, 
and  that  when  men  had  cried  out  before  him,  "  Hosanna, 
hosanna,  to  him  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord," 
and  he  had  been  called  upon  to  rebuke  them,  he  had 
refused  so  to  do.  It  could  be  proved  that  he  had  worked 
miracles  in  his  own  name,  though  no  prophet  had  ever 
done  so ;  that  he  had  prophesied  in  his  own  name,  and 
had  claimed  even  to  forgive  sins  in  his  own  name.  And 
yet  such  had  been  the  reserve  of  Jesus  that  it  could  not 
be  proved  that  he  had  claimed  distinctively  divine  char- 
acter. We  know  now  what  his  claims  had  been  in  the 
secret  councils  of  bis  own  disciples;  but  these  were  then 
to  the  public  unknown.  Evil  spirits  had  undertaken  to 
bear  testimony,  but  he  had  silenced  them.  The  men  he 
cured  would  have  borne  testimony,  but  he  forbade  them. 
With  a  wise  caution  born  of  foresight  he  had  guarded 
against  this  hour.  Witness  after  witness  was  brought — 
false  witnesses,  too,  perjured  witnesses  ;  but  in  their  testi- 
mony they  agreed  not  with  one  another.  There  was,  indeed, 
that  traitor  Judas,  who  might  have  been  summoned  to 
tell  what  had  been  spoken  in  the  secret  councils,  but  under 
the  Jewish  law  one  witness  was  not  enough  to  condemn  to 
death,  and  Judas  Iscariot's  testimony  unsupported  by 
other  testimony  would  have  been  without  avail. 

The  morning  sun  was  creeping  up  the  east.  The  golden 
glory  of  the  coming  day  was  flooding  the  council  chamber. 

1  Goldstein's  "  Life  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth." 


THE    COURT    OF    CAIAPHAS  157 

The  priests  and  scribes  began  to  fear  that  their  victim 
would  escape  them,  and  that  they  would  be  unable  to  bring 
such  testimony  as  would  sustain  a  conviction  of  blasphemy 
even  in  that  packed  tribunal.  At  last  the  High  Priest  ven- 
tured on  a  bold  experiment.  He  put  Jesus  Christ  himself 
on  the  witness-stand.  He  administered  the  Jewish  oath  : 
"  I  adjure  thee  by  the  living  God  that  thou  tell  us  whether 
thou  art  the  Son  of  God."  Jesus  interposed  his  remon- 
strance :  "If  I  tell  you,"  he  said,  "you  will  not  believe. 
If  I  question  you,  you  will  not  answer.  If  I  should  prove 
my  innocence,  you  would  not  let  me  go."  Still  the  High 
Priest  persisted  :  "  I  adjure  thee  that  thou  tell  us  by  the 
hving  God  v;hether  thou  be  the  Messiah."  Jesus  might 
have  refused  to  answer,  but  he  did  not.  "  Thou  shalt  see," 
he  said,  "the  Son  of  man  coming  in  the  clouds  of  glory  to 
judge  the  world.  The  relations  between  me  and  you  will 
be  reversed.  You  will  stand  before  my  judijment  bar.  I 
will  sit  upon  the  judgment  throne."  The  priest  again  per- 
sisted in  his  demand  :  "  Art  thou  indeed  the  Son  of  God  .?" 
Jesus  answered  with  a  clear,  ringing,  simple  statement :  "  I 
am."  One  may  imagine  the  hush  that  fell  upon  the  court 
and  the  crowd  outside  looking  in  through  the  windows  for 
the  moment,  as  the  High  Priest  rent  his  clothes,  which  the 
High  Priest  was  accustomed  to  do  on  conviction  of  blas- 
phemy and  in  token  of  his  judgment,  as  the  English  judge 
puts  the  black  cap  on  his  head  when  he  pronounces  sen- 
tence of  death.  And  the  whole  court,  waiting  not  for  the 
secret  ballot  required  by  the  Jewish  law,  cried  out :  "  He 
is  guilty  of  death,  he  is  guilty  of  death !" 

Our  Christian  faith,  that  faith  which  the  great  Evangeli- 
cal Church  of  Christendom  holds,  in  the  divine  character 
of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  does  not  depend  upon  any  interweav- 
ing of  texts  of  Scripture  nor  upon  any  doubtful  deductions. 
In  this  supreme  and  awful  moment  of  his  life,  when  he 
stood  face  to  face  with  death,  under  the  solemn  sanction 
of  his  oath,  when  he  was  under  the  highest  obligation  to 
sweep  away  misconstructions  and  misapprehensions  if  they 
existed — in  that  great  hour  he  swore,  before  that  court  and 
high  heaven,  that  he  was  the  Son  of  God  and  the  Judge  of 
humanity.  If  he  was  not  God's  well-beloved  Son,  he  was 
rightly  adjudged  guilty  of  blasphemy. 

Says  Judge  Greenleaf,  Professor  in  Harvard  Law  School 


158  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

at  the  time  of  his  death :  "  If  we  regard  Jesus  simply 
as  a  Jewish  citizen,  and  with  no  higher  character,  his  con- 
viction seems  substantially  right  in  point  of  law,  though 
the  trial  was  not  legal  in  all  its  forms.  For,  whether  the 
accusations  were  founded  on  the  first  or  second  commands 
in  the  Decalogue,  or  on  the  law  laid  down  in  the  thirteenth 
chapter  of  Deuteronomy,  or  that  in  the  eighteenth  chapter 
and  twentieth  verse,  he  had  violated  them  all  by  assuming 
to  himself  powers  belonging  alone  to  Jehovah  ;  and  even  if 
he  were  recognized  as  a  prophet  of  the  Lord,  he  was  still 
obnoxious  to  punishment,  under  the  decision  in  the  case  of 
Moses  and  Aaron,  before  cited.  It  is  not  easy  to  perceive 
on  what  ground  his  conduct  could  have  been  defended 
before  any  tribunal,  unless  upon  that  of  his  superhuman 
character.  No  lawyer,  it  is  conceived,  would  think  of 
placing  his  defense  on  any  other  basis."  ^ 

This  is  the  ground  of  our  faith  in  Jesus  as  the  Divine 
Son  of  God.  In  this  supreme  hour  of  his  life,  when  the 
claim  meant  death  to  himself,  when,  if  it  were  false,  it 
meant  falsity  running  through  all  human  history  and  to  all 
time,  he  claimed  divinity  under  the  solemn  sanction  of  his 
oath  and  in  the  presence  of  eternity.  There  is  no  room  to 
build  a  tomb  to  Jesus  of  Nazareth  beside  the  tomb  of  Con- 
fucius of  China,  Buddha  of  India,  Socrates  of  Greece.  He 
was  either  less  than  a  philosopher  or  more  than  a  man. 
He  was  either  the  Son  of  God  or  to  be  acquitted  of  blas- 
phemy only  by  being  regarded  as  an  enthusiast.  He  was 
either  undeserving  of  our  confidence  or  entitled  to  the 
highest  loyalty  and  allegiance  that  human  hearts  can  give 
him. 

1 "  Examination  of  the  Testimony  of  the  Four  Evangelists  ;  with  an  Account' 
of  the  Trial  of  Jesus."    By  Simon  Greenleaf,  LL.D. 


CHAPTER    XLI.— THE   TRIAL    BEFORE    PILATE 
John  xviii.j  28-38;  xix-,  4-16;  Luke  xxiii.,  6-12;  Matt,  xxvii.,  15-31 


Jesus  had  been  pronounced  worthy  of  death  by  the  Jew- 
ish tribunal.  But  they  could  not  execute  their  sentence. 
It  was  necessary  to  secure  the  ratification  of  it  from  Pilate, 
who  was  at  once  Governor  and  Judge  of  Judea. 

The  Temple  at  Jerusalem  was  built  upon  a  broad  plat- 
form of  rock  overlooking  the  deep  ravine  upon  the  east, 
and  separated  by  another  deep  ravine  from  the  palace,  once 
of  Solomon,  now  of  Herod,  upon  the  west.  Close  adjoin- 
ing this  Temple  there  had  been  built  by  Pilate  a  great 
tower,  with  four  walled  towers  at  its  four  corners.  It  was 
at  once  a  Roman  garrison  and  a  Roman  Governor's  palace. 
Its  broad  halls  were  almost  as  wide  as  the  Jewish  streets, 
and  its  abundant  rooms  furnished  a  resting-place  for  five 
hundred  soldiers,  besides  the  rooms  for  the  Roman  Governor. 
At  about  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  7th  of  April  in 
the  year  of  our  Lord  34,  Pilate,  resting  in  his  palace  in  this 
tower  of  Antonia,  was  aroused  by  turbulent  sounds  in  the 
street  below.  He  was  used  to  the  turbulence  of  the  Jewish 
people.  Their  passions,  their  superstitions,  their  patriot- 
ism, and  their  prejudices  had  been  aroused  by  the  priest- 
hood to  insurrection  against  the  Roman  authority,  and 
once  and  again  he  had  entered  into  conflict  with  that  same 
priesthood,  stirring  up  that  same  people,  and  had  been 
compelled,  by  fear  of  their  violence,  to  withdraw,  humil- 
iated and  defeated,  from  the  controversy.  He  hastened 
down,  stepped  out  on  to  the  broad  space  that  led  directly 
into  the  Temple  courts,  down  which  more  than  once  the 
Roman  soldiery  had  issued  to  quell  disturbances  in  the 
courts  of  the  Jewish  Temple,  and  there  saw  a  great  multi- 
tude, already  growing  into  a  mob.  It  filled  the  broad 
court  of  the  Temple  and  ran  out  into  the  streets  that  led  back 
to  the  Temple  courts,  and  men  were  hurrying  from  differ- 
ent parts  of  the  city  to  increase  it.     Before  him  stood  a 

159 


l6o  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

few  of  the  priesthood,  whom  he  hated,  and  in  their  midst 
a  single  figure,  pale,  wearied  with  the  night's  watching, 
with  some  of  the  signs  of  the  ignominy  and  shame  that 
had   already   been   heaped   upon   him.     His  hands  were 
bound  behind  his  back ;  but   something  in  his  face   and 
figure,  something  in  the  soul  that  looked  through  his  eyes, 
made  itself  felt  even  in  the  heart  of  the  hard,  unemotional 
Roman.     The  Governor  asked  the  priesthood  what  they 
wanted.     "  We  have  found  this  fellow  guilty,"  they  said, 
"  and  we  have  condemned  him  to  death.     We  ask  authority 
to  execute  the  death  sentence."     "  Take  him,"  said  Pilate, 
*'  and  judge  him  according  to  your  law."     "We  have  done 
so  already,  but  it  is  not  permitted  to  us  to  execute  death 
sentence,  and  he  is  worthy  of  death.     If  he  were  not  guilty, 
we  would  not  have  condemned  him."     ''  I  am  not  so  sure 
of  that,"  said  Pilate.     ''What  has  he  done.?"     The  very 
refusal  of  Pilate  to  ratify  unquestioningly   the   sentence 
which  the  Sanhedrim  had  pronounced  against  Jesus  raised 
an  issue  which  the  priesthood  were  unwilling  to  raise,  and 
yet  of  which   they  made    effective   use.     The   people   of 
Judea  were  restless  under  the  yoke  of  pagan  authority, 
wrathful  that  the  authority  had  passed  from  their  hands 
into  the  hands  of  a  hated  pagan,  angered  that  they  could 
not  carry  into  instant  execution,  without  appeal  to  a  foreign 
power,  the  sentence  of  their  own  supreme  court,  maddened 
that  in  the  very  moment  of  their  triumph  their  way  was 
apparently  blocked.     It  was  easy  to  lash  such  a  people 
into  a  threatening  mob.     The  priests,  too,  had  prepared 
themselves   for   this   exigency.      They   knew   that   Pilate 
would  condemn  no  man  for  blasphemy,  and  they  proceeded 
with  a  new  accusation.     "  We  have   found   this   fellow," 
they  said,  "  perverting  the  people.     He  has  claimed  to  be 
a  king.     He  has  set  himself  up  against  Caesar.     We  de- 
mand his  death." 

It  is  not  difficult  for  us  to  imagine  with  what  evidence 
they  endeavored  to  sustain  this  new  accusation.  He  had 
claimed  to  be  a  King ;  had  assumed  all  the  prerogatives 
of  royalty  ;  had  demanded  absolute  and  supreme  allegi- 
ance from  his  followers ;  had  promulgated  laws ;  had 
announced  himself  the  supreme  and  final  Judge  of  man- 
kind ;  had  organized  in  the  heart  of  Caesar's  province  the 
germ  of  an  imperishable  community  ;  had  marched  into 


THE    TRIAL    BEFORE    PILATE  i6l 

Jerusalem  attended  by  a  multitude  which  hailed  him  "  King 
of  the  Jews."  His  little  body-guard  were  armed  with 
swords,  and  his  arrest  had  been  finally  accomplished  only 
despite  violent  resistance.  It  is  true  that  the  legislation 
which  Jesus  had  promulgated  was  for  the  government  of 
the  individual,  not  for  the  regulation  of  a  political  com- 
munity ;  that  he  had  steadfastly  refused  to  arbitrate  in 
civil  disputes,  or  to  act  as  judge  in  enforcing  civil  law ; 
that  first  among  the  precepts  for  the  government  of  his 
spiritual  community  was  that  of  unconditional  non-resist- 
ance ;  that  he  had  repeatedly  cautioned  the  enthusiastic 
multitude  that  his  kingdom  was  not  of  this  world,  and  would 
not  immediately  appear ;  and  that  the  resistance  which  a 
single  misguided  follower  had  offered  to  his  arrest  was 
instantly  rebuked,  and  its  evil  effects  miraculously  cured. 
The  charge  that  Jesus  forbade  to  give  tribute  to  Caesar  was 
not  only  wholly  false,  but  in  direct  contradiction  to  the 
facts.  But,  by  misrepresenting  much  that  Jesus  had  said, 
adding  something  and  suppressing  more — a  method  not 
unknown  to  modern  priestcraft  in  ecclesiastical  controver- 
sies— it  was  not  difficult  to  present  a  case  that  reallv 
demanded  of  the  Procurator  offic'.al  investigation.  He 
therefore  assumed  jurisdiction  of  the  case,  summoned  Jesus 
within  the  fortress  for  a  quieter  examination,  and  asked 
him  for  an  explanation  of  these  charges.  Jesus  would  not 
defend  himself  before  a  dishonest  tribunal.  But  to  the 
Procurator,  ignorant  alike  of  the  character  and  mission 
of  Jesus  and  really  perplexed,  Jesus  readily  vouchsafed 
the  explanation  he  requested,  in  a  few  brief  but  sig- 
nificant words,  whose  meaning  a  paraphrase  may  help 
to  make  clear.  He  was  a  King,  but  he  was  no  preacher 
of  sedition.  He  had  formed  no  purpose  of  interfering 
with  the  government  of  Rome.  He  had  no  need  to  call 
witnesses.  His  accusers  were  his  witnesses.  Who  had 
brought  this  accusation  against  him  ?  The  Jews.  If  it 
had  been  preferred  by  a  Roman  centurion,  it  might  have 
been  worthy  of  examination.  But  when  was  it  ever  known 
that  the  Jewish  priesthood  complained  to  their  Gentile 
government  of  one  who  sought  the  political  emancipation 
of  the  nation  ?  None  knew  better  than  Pilate  how  restive 
were  the  people  under  the  Roman  yoke.  The  voices  of 
the  mob  before  the  judgment-seat  crying  out  for  Jesus's 


l62  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

blood  were  unwitting  witnesses  of  his  innocence.  He  was 
a  King,  but  his  kingdom  was  not  of  this  world — was  not 
formed  on  the  principles  nor  maintained  by  the  methods 
of  political  empires.  If  it  had  been,  then  surely  from 
among  the  hundreds  who  only  four  days  before  had  accom- 
panied him  to  Jerusalem,  hailing  him  as  their  monarch, 
some  would  have  been  found  ready  to  defend  his  person 
with  their  lives.  Not  to  found  a  new  dynasty,  not  to  frame 
a  new  political  organization,  had  Christ  come  into  the 
world,  but  to  bear  witness  to  the  truth.  His  subjects 
swear  allegiance  only  to  the  truth — to  Jesus,  bovause  Jesus 
is  the  truth.  And  they  only  to  w^hom  truth  is  of  higher 
worth  than  all  else  comprehend  his  voice  and  participate 
in  his  kingdom.  Pilate,  half  pityingly,  half  contemptuously, 
replied  with  his  famous  question,  "  What  is  truth .?"  To 
this  Roman  realist,  knowing  only  kingdoms  that  are  built 
by  the  sword  and  cemented  by  blood,  this  conception  of 
an  invisible  kingdom  of  truth  seemed  but  the  baseless 
vision  of  a  religious  enthusiast.  But  though  he  lacked 
moral,  he  did  not  lack  political,  penetration.  It  was  clear 
this  Galilean  rabbi  was  no  rival  to  the  Caesars.  The  sus- 
picions which  he  had  from  the  first  entertained  of  the 
motives  of  his  old-time  enemies  were  confirmed,  and  from 
this  brief  interview  he  returned  to  the  accusers  of  Jesus 
to  announce  his  judgment  of  acquittal. 

Then  commenced  the  battle  which  waged  for  certainly 
an  hour  or  more,  and  ended  as  all  such  battles  between 
unscrupulous  persistence  and  cowardly  compromises  must. 
Consider  the  three  figures  in  this  battle :  the  priesthood, 
resolute,  earnest,  determined,  clamorous,  inciting  the  gath- 
ering mob  that  they  might  wrest  from  the  unwilling  judge 
the  condemnation  which  they  could  not  expect  from  his 
conscience  or  his  judgment;  the  prisoner,  calm,  unmoved, 
silent  through  all  the  false  accusations,  interposing  to 
them  nothing  but  a  solemn  and  witnessing  silence ;  and 
Pilate — man  of  the  world;  Roman,  who  believed  neither 
in  God  nor  in  immortality ;  whose  mpral  sense  had  in  it  no 
religious  inspiration,  behind  it  no  religious  sanction  ;  whose 
only  support  in  an  hour  of  trial  was  the  sense  of  honor  that 
is  so  much  vaunted  and  is  so  feeble ;  a  man  who  would 
have  resented  with  wrathful  indignation  the  charge  of 
cowardice,  and  yet  proved  himself  a  coward  ;  not  inhuman  ; 


THE    TRIAL    BEFORE    PILATE  163 

not  cruel ;  not  meaning  to  be  apostate  ;  not  conscious  of 
the  great  crime  he  was  really  about  to  commit.  Let  us 
not  misjudge  him.  He  was  a  judge.  There  stood  before 
him  one  whom  he  regarded  as  a  mild,  harmless  religious 
enthusiast.  Prejudice  had  been  aroused  against  him. 
Should  he  let  this  man  go,  there  would  certainly  arise  a 
riot  in  Jerusalem,  the  rumor  of  which  might  reach  the 
Court  of  Rome,, and  might  bring  trouble  upon  him,  cer- 
tainly would  bring  trouble  upon  the  nation.  Should  he 
execute  him — only  one  more  harmless  enthusiast  out  of 
existence.  No  great  harm  done.  So  he  reasons  ;  and,  so 
reasoning,  palters  with  the  mob.  His  quick  ear  catches 
the  suggestion  that  this  man  is  a  Galilean.  He  sends  him 
across  the  ravine  to  Herod,  hoping  thus  to  get  rid  of  him. 
He  appeals  to  the  patriotism  of  the  people.  "  Your  King  ! 
shall  I  crucify  him .?"  He  endeavors  by  various  devices 
to  appeal  to  the  sympathies  of  a  mob  that  have  no  sym- 
pathies. One  thing  he  does  not  do.  He  does  not  say  to 
that  gathering  mob,  "Though  the  heavens  fall,  justice 
shall  be  done.  Though  he  that  stands  before  me  is  but  a 
weak  enthusiast,  without  friends,  though  his  execution  can 
do  no  harm,  and  his  deliverance  may  do  much  injury,  still 
I  will  do  justice,  come  what  may."  And  when,  at  last,  the 
high  priests  hiss  in  his  ears,  "  This  man  made  himself  a 
king  ;  and  he  that  lets  a  claimant  to  the  throne  go  free  is 
no  friend  of  Tiberius  Cassar,"  he  resists  their  demand  no 
longer.^  When  his  imagination  calls  up  the  picture  of  that 
most  jealous  and  cruel  monarch  on  the  throne  of  the 
Casars,  when  he  remembers  that  his  own  place  may  be 
swept  from  under  him  at  the  demand  of  this  same  priest- 
hood, enforced  by  this  same  mob,  he  washes  his  hands  of 
responsibility  and  delivers  the  innocent  One  to  death. 
"And  they  took  Jesus  and  led  him  away." 


CHAPTER  XLII.— THE    CRUCIFIXION 

Mark  xv.,  21-41;  Luke  xxiii.,  26-49;  John  xix.,  17-37 


Among  all  the  dreadful  deaths  which  the  cruelty  of  man 
has  invented  wherewith  to  express  his  thirst  for  human 
unhappiaess,  his  greed  of  revenge  and  hate,  none  surpasses 
in  cruelty  crucifixion.  Even  in  the  hard  and  cruel  age  to 
which  it  belongs,  even  among  the  unsympathetic,  cold, 
and  remorseless  Romans,  it  was  accounted  cruel  beyond 
all  reason  and  measure,  reserved  for  slaves,  for  specially 
obnoxious  criminals,  or  for  those  who  were  the  victims  of 
malice  in  remote  provinces.  The  victim  of  the  crucifixion 
was  nailed  to  the  cross,  sometimes  partly  nailed  and  partly 
tied  to  it.  Then  he  was  left  to  hang  there,  no  vital  organ 
affected,  only  wounds  in  the  hands  and  feet,  the  hot  sun 
beating  down  upon  his  naked  head  and  body,  impossible 
to  move,  hot,  feverish  pains  running  through  every  nerve, 
currents  of  blood  flowing  with  almost  bursting  rapidity  in 
the  arteries,  no  power  of  cooling  the  fevered  brow,  no 
power  to  move  the  anguished  body.  So  he  hung,  always 
for  hours,  often  for  days,  before  death  mercifully  came  to 
release  him,  unless  the  wearied  executioners,  fatigued  by 
the  watching,  broke  the  legs  or  pierced  the  side  of  the 
criminal,  and  so  gave  him  escape  from  his  torture.  It  was 
to  this  death  Christ  was  condemned,  by  the  clamor  of 
the  very  people  whom  he  had  come  to  save,  by  the  clamor 
of  the  very  nation  whom  he  loved  with  all  the  patriotic 
devotion  of  one  who  was  by  birth  and  by  education  a  Jew, 
with  all  the  sympathetic  love  of  a  human  heart  that  beat 
with  love  as  never  human  heart  has  beat  before  or  since, 
with  all  the  larger  love  that  was  enshrined  in  a  heart  divine. 

From  Pilate's  judgment-seat  the  procession  moved  for- 
ward to  the  place  of  execution.  Three  prisoners  marched 
with  it,  guarded  by  a  Roman  soldiery  under  the  command 
of  a  Roman  centurion.  Each  of  the  condemned  bore,  as 
was  the  custom  of  the  age,  his  cross.     Jesus,  wearied  with 

164 


THE    CRUCIFIXION  165 

the  night's  watching — never,  from  other  indications  of  the 
Gospel,  it  would  appear,  physically  strong — seems  to  have 
sunk  beneath  the  weight  of  his  cross.  The  soldiers  seized 
upon  a  peasant  coming  into  the  city,  impressed  him  into 
their  service,  and  made  him  carry  the  cross  for  the  Naza- 
rene.  It  was  accounted  afterwards  for  his  honor  in  the 
Church  ;  and  the  sons  of  this  Simon  that  bore  the  cross  of 
Jesus  to  Golgotha  were  known  in  the  subsequent  history 
for  that  simple  involuntary  service  of  their  father. 

There  was  in  Jerusalem  at  this  time  an  organization  of 
women,  the  germ  of  those  subsequent  philanthropic  organ- 
izations which  have  been  formed  to  mitigate  the  sufferings 
of  humanity.  Delegations  and  representatives  of  this 
society  were  accustomed  to  come  to  the  place  of  execution 
when  Jews  were  condemned  to  death,  to  mourn  for  the 
condemned,  and  to  do  what  little  in  them  lay  both  to  com- 
fort and  alleviate.  Some  of  these  women  followed  the 
procession  which  wound  slowly  down  the  hill  toward  the 
place  where  the  execution  was  to  take  place.  In  accord- 
ance with  the  custom  of  the  Orient,  they  beat  upon  their 
breasts,  tore  their  garments  and  their  hair,  and  showed  all 
those  ostentatious  signs  of  sorrow  so  characteristic  of  that 
age,  but  which  Christ  with  difficulty  could  endure.  He 
turned  to  them  and  said,  "Weep  not  for  me,  but  weep  for 
yourselves,  and  for  your  children."  Christ's  crucifixion  is 
not  to  awaken  in  us  pity  for  the  crucified. 

They  reach  the  place  of  execution.  The  anassthetic 
agents  known  in  our  time  were  not,  indeed,  then  known  ; 
but  something  like  them  had  been  invented  to  dull  the 
senses  and  alleviate  pain  in  the  hours  of  great  agony.  These 
womer  had  brought  some  wine  mingled  with  myrrh  for  that 
purpose.^  If  Christ  would  but  take  it,  the  bitterness  of 
death  would  be  at  least  lightened  in  these  last  hours.  They 
offered  it  to  him.  He  recognized  in  the  bitter  myrrh  the 
object  for  whith  it  was  given  him,  shook  his  head,  and 
turned  away.  He  would  not  enter  the  gates  of  death  with 
dulled  senses. 

The  cross  was  laid  upon  the  ground.  He,  silent  and 
unresisting,  was  laid  upon  it.  Nails  were  driven  through 
the  hands  and  feet ;  and  then  the  cross  was  raised  to  its 

*  See  Edersheim's  "  Life  of  Christ,"  II.,  t;9o ;  Lightfoot's  '*  Horae  Hebraiacae  " 
on  Matt,  xxvii.,  34,  and  John  xix.,  29. 


1 66  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

place  with  a  wrench  that  sent  agony  tingling  through  the 
veins  and  nerves  of  the  body  and  that  wrung  from  him  a 
cry  for  mercy,  not  for  himself,  but  for  others :  "  Father, 
forgive  them;  for  they  know  not  what  they  do." 

The  Roman  soldiers  sat  down  at  the  foot  of  the  cross. 
One  of  them  took  some  dice  out  of  his  pocket.  Another  pro- 
duced abottle  of  cheap  sour  wine.  Then,  beneath  the  shadow 
of  the  cross,  with  the  blood  trickling  down  from  the  burn- 
ing arms  and  feet  of  the  Crucified,  they  drank  and  gambled 
for  the  garment  of  the  One  who  died  to  save  them.^ 

The  hill  where  the  crucifixion  took  place  was  upon  one 
of  the  highways  that  led  to  Jerusalem,  and  pilgrims  passing 
stopped  to  look  at  the  scene,  then  joined  with  the  chief 
priests  in  their  taunts  to  the  dying  One.  Two  brigands — 
sharers,  probably,  in  that  insurrection  which  Barabbas  had 
set  on  foot — were  crucified,  one  on  either  side  of  Christ. 
One  of  them  joined  in  the  taunts  of  the  multitude ;  the 
other,  touched  by  something  in  the  power  and  presence  of 
the  dying  One,  rebuked  his  companion,  then  turned  to 
Jesus  with  the  cry,  "  Jesus,  remember  me  when  thou  comest 
in  thy  kingdom,"  and  received  the  answer,  "To-day  shalt 
thou  be  with  me  in  Paradise." 

Among  the  groups  about  the  cross  was  one  standing  a 
little  apart — John,  the  most  loving,  and  also  the  most 
courageous,  and  Christ's  mother,  watching  to  the  last,  un- 
able to  relieve,  but  unable  to  go  away  till  all  was  over.  In 
broken  accents  Christ  addresses  them.  "  Mother,"  he 
said,  "Mother,  look!  thy  son.  Son,  look!  thy  mother," 
It  was  enough.  From  that  day  forth  the  disciple  whom 
Christ  loved  became  the  guardian  of  the  mother  whom 
Christ  loved. 

It  was  between  twelve  and  three  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon when  murky  and  waterless  clouds  began  to  overcast 
the  horizon  and  fill  all  the  air  with  that  strange,  mysterious, 
and  awful  silence  which  presages  an  earthquake.  The 
birds  hushed  their  singing  and  fled  to  their  nests.  The 
lamps  were  lighted  in  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem.  The  dark- 
ness grew  so  dense  that  men  and  women  hurried  to 
their  homes,  wondering  what  was  to  come.     In  this  hour 

^  The  "vinegar  "  referred  to  in  John  xix.,  29,  etc.,  is  the />csca  or  mixture  of 
sour  wine  or  vinegar  and  water  which  the  Roman  soldiers  were  accustomed  to 
dnnk.    See  Thayer's  "  Lexicon  of  New  Testament  "  under  o^os  (oxos). 


THE    CRUCIFIXION  167 

of  darkness  the  Faiher  seemed  to  have  left  his  well-beloved 
Son,  and  when  this  sense  of  intolerable  desolation  came 
over  him,  it  wrung  from  his  lips  the  cry,  "  Eloi,  eloi,  lama 
sabacthani " — My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken 
me  ?  Yet  even  then  he  did  not  forsake  his  God.  It  was 
not  "God,  God!"  but  ''My  God,  My  God!"  Still  he 
clung  to  the  Father  who  seemed  for  the  moment  even  to 
his  shattered  faith  to  have  flung  him  off.  The  burning 
fever  that  scorched  his  brain  and  parched  his  lips  wrung 
from  him  the  cry,  <'I  thirst."  One  of  the  bystanders, 
probably  one  of  the  soldiers,  ran,  and,  dipping  a  sponge  in 
the  sour  wine  they  were  drinking,  lifted  it  to  his  lips  ;  but 
some  of  the  others,  callous  to  the  last,  scornfully  inter- 
vened. They  pretended  to  misunderstand  his  prayer  as 
a  cry  to  Elijah  for  help.  "Let  him  alone,"  said  they; 
"let  us  see  if  Elijah  will  deliver  him." 

But  at  the  same  moment  came  the  deliverance  from  his 
Father.  He  perceived  the  answer,  and  cried  with  a  loud, 
strong  voice,  "  It  is  finished."  And  then,  as  though  in  that 
very  hour  of  entreaty  to  his  Father  he  heard  the  Father's 
response,  he  breathed  forth  his  final  prayer,  "  Father,  into 
thy  hands  I  commit  my  spirit,"  his  head  dropped  upon  his 
bosom,  and  he  was  gone.  A  little  later  the  Roman  soldiers 
came  that  way  with  orders  to  hasten  the  death  of  the  three 
condemned.  They  broke  the  legs  of  the  two  malefactors. 
To  their  surprise,  Jesus  was  already  dead  ;  but  one  of 
them,  to  make  sure  of  it,  with  brutal  celerity  characteristic 
of  the  Roman,  plunged  his  short  spear  into  the  crucified 
side,  and  out  gushed  blood  and  water  to  bear  its  conclu- 
sive witness  to  the  reality  of  his  death. 

Ge'rom.e's  picture  of  the  crucifixion  represents  the  sol- 
diery and  the  chief  priests  returning  to  the  city,  and  only 
the  shadows  of  the  cross  are  seen  upon  the  ground.  I 
seek  here,  not  to  paint  the  crucifixion,  but  simply  to  point 
to  the  shadows  which  it  casts.  Velasquez  represents  the 
crucifixion  of  Jesus  in  the  hour  of  death.  The  head  has 
fallen  forward^  and  the  long  hair  fallen  over  the  face  veils 
the  features  from  our  sight.  So  here,  with  hesitating  pen, 
I  seek  to  represent  our  dying  Lord — his  anguish  veiled, 
his  love  revealed,  in  this  his  supreme  self-sacrifice  for  love's 
sake. 


CHAPTER  XLIII.— THE  RESURRECTION 
MORNING 

Mark  xvi.,  i-8  ;  John  xx.,  1-18  ;  Matt,  xxviii.,  1-15 


The  disciples  were  heartbroken  at  the  death  of  Christ. 
They  had  never  understood  his  prophecies  of  either  his 
crucifixion  or  his  resurrection.  Nor  is  this  strange.  Christ 
was  accustomed  to  talk  to  them  in  parables  and  metaphors. 
He  was  a  poet.  They  were  plain,  prosaic  men  who  could 
not  understand  metaphors.  His  intensity  of  nature,  his 
spiritual  vision,  his  transcendent  teaching,  often  puzzled 
and  perplexed  them.  When  he  meant  to  be  taken  literally, 
they  thought  he  was  talking  parables.  When  he  was  talk- 
ing parables,  they  took  him  literally.  He  cautioned  them 
against  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees.  They  thought  it  was 
because  they  had  no  bread.  He  told  them  that  the  time 
of  conflict  was  coming  and  they  must  be  prepared  for  it. 
They  produced  in  exultation  a  couple  of  swords.  When 
he  told  them  that  the  kingdom  of  God  was  at  hand,  they 
expected  his  coronation  and  enthronement,  and  asked  for 
the  best  places  on  his  right  hand  and  on  his  left.  On  the 
other  hand,  when  he  told  them  that  he  was  going  away, 
and  they  knew  whither  he  was  going  and  the  way,  they  re- 
plied that  they  did  not  know.  When  he  said,  '*  A  little 
while  and  ye  shall  not  see  me,  and  a  little  while  and  ye 
shall  see  me,"  they  said  to  one  another,  "What  is  this  little 
while  }  We  cannot  understand  what  he  is  talking  about." 
So  when  he  told  them  that  the  Son  of  man  would  be  cruci- 
fied, and  would  be  raised  from  the  dead  again  the  third  day, 
they  thought  that  this  was  one  of  his  metaphors,  his  par- 
ables.    They  did  not  comprehend  it. 

His  death,  therefore,  left  them  without  hope.  The 
women  weeping  at  the  tomb  had  love  for  him  still,  but  no 
hope  of  his  reappearance  and  little  faith  in  his  Messiahship. 
We  had  trusted,  said  the  disciples,  that  this  had  been  he 

168 


THE     RESURRECTION    MORNING  169 

which  should  have  redeemed  Israel.  This  is  the  language 
of  men  who  trust  thus  no  longer.  Faith  was  dead  ;  hope 
was  dead  ;  only  love  lived  :  and  love  without  faith  and 
hope  is  anguish. 

The  incidents  of  the  resurrection  morn  it  is  not  alto- 
gether easy  to  bring  together  into  a  connected  narrative. 
No  one  evangelist  gives  more  than  a  partial  account  of 
the  resurrection  events,  and  there  are  naturally  discrepan- 
cies between  these  partial  and  incomplete  narratives.  But 
there  are  no  contradictions — that  is,  no  statements  by  one 
writer  irreconcilable  with  the  statements  of  other  writers — 
and  no  differences,  I  believe,  after  a  careful  study  of  the 
narratives,  which  might  not  be  readily  harmonized  if  we 
knew  all  the  facts. 

Several  women  (the  exact  number  is  not  known)  go  early 
in  the  morning  of  the  first  day  of  the  week  to  the  sepulcher. 
Their  purpose  is  to  complete  the  anointing  of  the  body  of 
their  Lord,  which  was  left  incomplete  when  darkness  over- 
took the  sad  group  on  Friday  night.  How  they  can  get  into 
the  tomb  is  a  perplexity  to  them,  for  the  door  is  closed  by 
a  heavy  stone  which  they  have  not  the  strength  to  roll 
away.  When  they  reach  the  tomb,  behold,  the  stone  has 
been  rolled  away.  They  enter  into  the  sepulcher;  an 
angelic  messenger  there  assures  them  that  Christ -is  risen, 
and  bids  them  go  and  tell  the  disciples,  and  especially 
Peter,  of  the  fact.  They  hasten  with  their  news,  but  the 
disciples  do  not  believe  them.  Mere  women's  tales  this 
story  of  a  resurrection  appears  to  the  fishermen  disciples. 
Two  of  them,  however,  are  sufficiently  stirred  by  the  story 
to  return  with  one  of  the  women  to  the  grave.  When  they 
reach  the  sepulcher  and  look  in  and  see  that  it  is  empty, 
and  see  that  the  grave-clothes  are  still  there,  not  left  in 
disorder,  but  neatly  folded  and  put  in  place,  there  flashes 
into  the  intuitive  mind  of  John  the  meaning  of  Christ's 
prophecies  ;  and  he  saw,  it  is  said,  and  believed.  Mary, 
overwhelmed  with  grief  at  the  helplessness  of  their  sit- 
uation; Mary,  who  has  not  yet  taken  in  the  truth  of 
the  resurrection,  and  thinks  that  the  Lord's  tomb  has 
been  robbed  and  the  Lord's  body  borne  away  to  some 
dishonored  grave,  remains  weeping,  and  is  accosted  by 
some  one  whom  she  believes  to  be  the  gardener  until  he 
pronounces  her  name  in  the  familiar  accents  of  her  Master. 


lyo  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

This  identifies  him,  and  she  hastens  back  to  Jerusalem  to 
confirm  the  tidings  before  brought  of  the  resurrection.^ 

Meanwhile  the  soldiers  have  made  their  report  to  the 
chief  priests,  and  have  been  bribed  to  start  the  story  which 
is  subsequently  found  in  Jewish  traditions,  that  the  grave 
has  been  rifled  by  the  disciples — a  story  which,  however, 
has  no  standing  to-day  even  in  the  tribunals  of  skepticism. 

Here  we  break  off  the  narrative  of  the  resurrection  morn, 
to  continue  the  story  next  week  of  the  subsequent  incidents 
between  the  resurrection  and  the  ascension. 

1  This  incident,  given  fully  in  John  xx.,  11-18,  is  probably  the  one  briefly 
referred  to  in  Matthew  xxviii.,  9,  10. 


CHAPTER  XLIV.— FURTHER  RESURRECTION 
APPEARANCES 

Luke  xxlv.,  13-53;  John  xx.,  19-29 


The  appearances  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  vromen  and  the 
discovery  of  the   empty  tomb  by  Peter  and  John  had  Lft 
the  disciples  in  great  perplexity.     What  to  make  of  it  all 
they  d"d  not  know.     The  notion  of  a  real  resurrection  was 
"  too  good  to  be  true."     The  soul  does  not  readily  adapt 
itself  to  so  great  a  change  as  was  involved  in  the  transition 
from  the  despair  of  Friday  night  to  a  faith  in  a  Messiah 
whom  even  death  could  not  vanquish.     Moreover,  as  yet,  it 
must  be  confessed,  the  report  was  not  sufficiently  authen- 
ticated.    Peter  and  John  had  found  the  grave  empty  ;  but 
it  might  have  been  robbed.     Mary  thought  she  had  seen 
Christ ;  but  she  first  thought  him  to  be  tne  gardener,  and 
first  thoughts  are   sometimes  the  most   trustworthy.     An 
angel  had  told  the  women  that  Christ  had  risen;  but  an 
angel's  message  reported  by  women  did  not  suffice — can 
we  wonder  ? — to  satisfy  the  Apostles.     Simon  Peter  said 
that  Christ  had  appeared  to  him  :  this  was  the  best  evi- 
dence  the  others  had;  but  Simon  Peter  was  impulsive, 
ardent,  the  reverse  of  cool-blooded  and  judicial.     Could 
his  judgment  be  depended  on  ?    Partly  to  discuss  the  events 
of  the  past,  the  present  extraordinary  conditions,  and  their 
plans  and  purposes  for  the  future,  that  Sunday  evening  ten 
of  the  disciples  met  in  an  upper  chamber  in  Jerusalem. 
Was  it,  I  wonder,  the  same  chamber  where  they  had  that 
last  sad   meeting  with    their    Master?     The  doors   were 
closed,  for  they  justly  apprehended  some  further  attack 
upon  them.     Judas  Iscariot  knew  their  place  of  meeting, 
and,  if  Judas  had  already  committed  suicide,  it  is  by  no 
means  certain  that  the  others  knew  of  it.     They  had  had 
more  important  matters  to  think  about  since  they  had  last 
seen  him  on  that  fateful  night. 

While  they  were  conferring  in  whispered  voices,  awe- 

171 


172  THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

Stricken,  fearful,  divided  between  fear  and  hope,  dreading 
the  Jews,  not  impossibly  suspicious  even  of  one  another, 
since  one  had  already  proved  a  traitor,  there  came  a  knock- 
ing at  the  door.  It  was  opened,  with  what  caution  we  can 
guess,  and  there  stood  two  eager  and  breathless  disciples. 
They  brought  a  strange  story  to  confirm  the  reports  of 
Simon  Peter  and  the  women.  They  had  been  going  that 
very  evening  out  to  Emmaus,  a  village  of  Judea  about  seven 
miles  distant,  when  a  stranger  fell  in  with  them.  They 
were  talking  over  the  events  of  the  past  few  days — who 
could  think  or  talk  of  anything  else  ? — when  a  stranger 
joined  them  and  asked  them  what  they  were  talking  about. 
They  told  him  frankly  how  they  had  loved  Jesus,  how  they 
had  hoped  he  was  the  Messiah,  how  he  had  been  put  to 
death  and  their  hopes  had  ditd  with  him  and  been  buried 
in  his  tomb.  The  unknown  expressed  surprise  that  they 
so  little  comprehended  the  ancient  prophecies,  and  as  they 
walked  he  interpreted  those  prophecies  to  them.  Of  all 
the  strange  silences  of  Scripture  none  is  stranger  to  me 
than  this,  that  neither  of  these  disciples  made  a  record  of 
that  conversation  and  preserved  it  for  future  use.  What 
an  interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament  that  hour's  converse 
must  have  given  !  When  they  reached  their  destination, 
said  these  two  disciples,  the  stranger  was  going  on,  but 
they  persuaded  him  to  accept  their  hospitality.  He  did 
so  ;  the  three  sat  down  to  the  table  together ;  and  as  he 
took  the  bread  and  broke  it  and  blessed  it,  they  saw  in  him 
the  person  of  their  Lord.  But  no  sooner  had  they  recog- 
nized him  than  he  disappeared  as  mysteriously  as  he  had 
appeared ;  and  they,  not  even  waiting  to  sleep,  had  hastened 
back  to  Jerusalem  to  bring  their  confirmation  of  Christ's 
resurrection  to  the  others. 

While  the  group  were  discussing  this  report,  suddenly 
Jesus  appeared  among  them.  How  he  entered  they  could 
not  tell.  He  pronounced  on  them  the  benediction  of 
peace,  the  customary  Jewish  salutation.  He  calmed  their 
fears,  assuring  them  that  he  was  no  apparition  ;  and,  to 
add  assurance  to  his  words,  he  bade  them  feel  his  hands 
and  feet  and  wounded  side,  and  asked  for  food,  and  ate 
before  them  all.  Then  he  repeated,  in  substance,  his 
interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament,  showing  them  that 
his  passion  and  death,  so  far  from  being  a  defeat,  was  a 


FURTHER    RESURRECTION    APPEARANCES  173 

fulfillment  of  the  ancient  prophecies.  Had  they  compre- 
hended the  Scripture,  they  should  have  anticipated  the 
crucifixion. 

I  am  glad  Thomas  was  one  of  the  Apostles,  and  I  am 
glad  he  was  not  there  that  evening.  For  Thomas  was  a 
natural  unbeliever.  He  had  plenty  of  loyalty,  but  no  faith. 
He  was  a  plain,  practical,  prosaic  man.  He  was  not — one 
can  easily  imagine  him  saying  this  to  himself — he  was  not 
a  woman  to  mistake  a  gardener  for  a  ghost;  nor  a  Peter  to 
jump  at  conclusions  because  they  agreed  with  his  ardent 
desires  ;  nor  a  John  to  confound  the  creations  of  his  imag- 
ination with  the  conclusions  of  his  reason.  He  prided 
himself  on  holding  that  "  seeing  is  believing,"  and,  when 
the  disciples  reported  that  they  had  seen  the  Lord,  re- 
sponded curtly  that  he  would  believe  when  he  had  put  his 
fingers  in  the  nail-prints  and  thrust  his  hand  in  where  the 
spear  had  been  thrust.  If  that  early  church  had  acted  on 
the  principle  on  which  some  modern  defenders  of  the  faiih 
would  have  us  act,  they  would  have  excommunicated  this 
unbeliever  immediately.  But,  fortunately  for  us,  they  held 
that  nothing  is  infidelity  but  unfaithfulness  ;  and  this  loyal 
soul — loyal  despite  his  skepticism,  loyal  to  the  Master 
though  he  despairingly  believed  him  dead — they  welcomed 
as  a  brother,  though  he  not  only  doubted,  but  even  stoutly 
refused  to  believe  in,  the  resurrection.  Fortunate  for  us, 
I  say,  because  when  the  disciples  met  in  the  same  upper 
chamber  a  week  later,  and  Thomas  met  with  them — possibly 
with  a  faint  glimmer  of  a  hope  that  the  Master  would 
appear  to  him  and  put  an  end  to  his  doubts — He  did  so 
appear,  and  vanquished  them  by  seeming  to  yield  to  them. 
But  Thomas  did  not  wait  to  thrust  his  finger  into  the  nail- 
prints  or  his  hand  into  the  side.  Love  conquered  skepti- 
cism— it  is  always  love,  not  argument,  that  conquers  skep- 
ticism— and  he  fell  at  his  Master's  feet  with  a  fuller 
testimony  to  his  divine  Messiahship  than  had  ever  come 
from  the  lips  of  even  Peter  or  John. 

The  fact  of  the  resurrection  needed   no  further  witness. 
It  was  only  left  to  teach  its  lessons. 


CHAPTER  XLV.— THE  LESSON  OF  THE 
RESURRECTION 

John  xxi.,  1-17;  Matthew  xxviii.,  16-20;  Luke  xxiv.,  50-53 


The  disciples  were  convinced  that  death  had  not  extin- 
guished the  life  of  their  Master,  nor  ended  his  mission  ; 
but  they  were  still  in  perplexity.  By  his  successive  reap- 
pearances he  revealed  the  reality  of  his  life  ;  but  he  lived 
in  another,  though  a  seemingly  contiguous,  world,  and  came 
and  went  mysteriously,  always  disappearing  as  suddenly  and 
strangely  as  he  appeared.  But  he  did  not  take  command, 
and  without  a  commander  this  little  band  felt  themselves 
helpless.  Galilee  was  their  home ;  in  Galilee  they  had 
spent  the  most  joyous  hours  of  their  companionship  with 
him  ;  to  Galilee  he  bade  them  return  ;  and  to  Galilee  they 
went.  Peter's  restless  spirit  forbade  him  to  wait  in  inac- 
tivity for  he  knew  not  what.  "  I  am  going  to  resume  my 
fishing,"  he  said.     "  We  will  go  with  thee,"  said  the  others. 

Fishing,  as  conducted  by  these  Galilean  fishermen,  is  not 
sport.  It  is  hard  work.  On  this  occasion  they  toiled  all 
night,  and  caught  nothing.  In  the  early  gray  of  the  morn- 
ing they  saw  a  figure  on  the  shore.  The  Unknown  called 
out  to  them  :  "  Have  you  anything  to  eat  ?"  "  No  !"  they 
shouted  across  the  water.  "  Cast  the  net  on  the  right  side 
of  the  ship,  and  ye  shall  find."  They  took  the  hint,  cast 
the  net,  and  found  it  so  full  of  fish  that  they  could  not  draw 
it  into  the  boat.  The  remembrance  of  that  morning  when 
the  Master  had  similarly  enabled  them  to  follow  a  night  of 
useless  toil  with  a  great  catch  of  fish  ^  flashed  on  the  mind  of 
John,  and  he  exclaimed  to  Peter,  "  It  is  the  Lord  !"  Peter 
sprang  into  the  sea  and  swam  ashore,  leaving  the  others  to 
follow  in  their  boat,  dragging  the  net  with  them.  The 
Unknown  had  kindled  a  fire  and  was  cooking  some  fish  on 
the  coals  ;  he  had  some  bread  as  well,  and  invited  the  tired 

1  Luke  v.,  1-7. 


THE    LESSON    OF    THE    RESURRECTION 


175 


and  hungry  fishermen  to  breakfast  with  him.  They  knew 
him  ;  yet,  in  their  awe,  dared  not  question  him.  Breakfast 
over,  there  ensued  that  ever-memorable  colloquy  between 
Christ  and  Peter.  "  Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  lovest  thou  me 
more  than  these  ?"  "  Yea,  Lord;  thou  knowest  I  have  an 
affection  for  thee."  "Feed  my  lambs. — Simon,  son  of 
Jonas,  lovest  thou  me  ?"  "  Yea,  Lord  ;  thou  knowest  I  have 
an  affection  for  thee."  "  Shepherd  my  sheep. — Simon, 
son  of  Jonas,  hast  thou  ajiction  for  me?"  And  Peter,  it  is 
said,  was  grieved  because  the  third  time  Christ  said.  Hast 
thou  an  affection  for  me  ?  and  he  answered,  humbly  but 
earnestly,  "  Lord,  thou  knowest  all  things ;  thou  know- 
est I  have  an  affection  for  thee."  Jesus  said  to  him,  "  Feed 
my  little  sheep." ^  I  do  not  know  where  one  can  find  a 
more  beautiful  illustration  of  the  nature  of  Christ's  forgive- 
ness— no  reproaches  for  the  past,  no  penances,  no  proba- 
tion, no  degradation  of  rank  ;  only  a  new  issuing  of  the  old 
commission.  Love  and  service — these  are  the  witnesses 
of  repentance ;  Christ  asks  no  others  and  will  take  none 
less. 

A  little  later  he  met  the  eleven  again  on  one  of  the  hill- 
tops of  Galilee,  and  renewed  the  commission  to  all.  *'  Go 
ye,"  he  said,  "  and  disciple  all  nations,  baptizing  them  into 
the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost ;  teaching  them  to  observe  all  things  whatsoever  I 
have  commanded  you;  and,  lo,  I  am  with  you  every  day 
unto  the  end  of  the  world."  ^  Once  again  he  meets  them 
— in  the  locality  of  Bethany,  Luke  tells  us — declines  to 
tell  them  ze^/z£f>^  the  kingdom  of  God  will  come  in  power  and 
manifested  glory,  but  bids  them  go  forth  to  bear  witness 
^to  him  throughout  the  world,  and  is  then  taken  up  and 
received  by  a  cloud  out  of  their  sight,  to  appear  no  more.^ 

The  lesson  of  the  resurrection  is  very  plain,  and  hardly 
needs  the  subsequent  history  of  the  early  Church  to  em- 
phasize it.  Christ  his  interpreted  it  by  his  repeated  com- 
missions:  "Feed  my  sheep;"  "  Disciple  all  nations  ;"  "Ye 
shall  be  my  witnesses."  We  are  not  to  remain  at  the  cross 
gazing  at  it.     We  are  not  to  remain  at  the  tomb  weeping. 

^Two  different  Greek  words  are  rendered  love  in  both  the  old  and  the  new 
versions— unfortunately,  because  an  understanding  of  the  difference  is  abso- 
lutely vital  to  an  understandin;^  of  the  conference. 

"^  Matt,  xxviii.,  16-20. 

3  Luke  xxiv.,  50-53 ;  Acts,  i.,  i-ii. 


176  THE     LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

We  are  not  to  go  back  to  Palestine  for  a  Christ,  and  seek 
the  living  among  the  dead.  We  are  not  to  stand  gazing  up 
into  heaven,  or  looking  forward  into  the  future,  wondering 
when  and  how  he  will  come  again.  We  are  not  to  waste 
our  time  in  idle  disputations  about  the  nature  of  his  resur- 
rection body — how  he  could  ascend  into  heaven  with  flesh 
and  blood  ?  or,if  the  resurrection  was  of  the  "  spiritual  body," 
what  became  of  the  body  of  flesh  and  blood?  We  are  to 
take  the  message  of  the  Eister  day — Christ  is  risen  ;  we 
are  to  find  in  it  the  evidence  that  he  is  indeed  the  Messiah 
for  whom  the  world  has  so  long  been  waiting ;  we  are  to 
see  in  these  two  events — the  crucifixion  and  the  resurrec- 
tion— the  evidence  of  his  love  and  of  his  power ;  and  then 
we  are  to  go  forth  to  bear  witness  in  all  the  world  to  both 
the  love  and  the  power,  to  make  disciples  of  all  nations,  to 
teach  them  who  Christ  is  and  what  Christianity  means, 
and  to  feed  them  on  the  words,  the  life,  the  real  and  living 
presence,  of  the  Son  of  God,  the  Saviour  of  mankind. 


THE   END 


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